Will Smith Seven Pounds Press Conference
Can't it be both, like Romeo and Juliet?Will Smith: "Absolutely. I looked at Romeo and Juliet and there is a slight difference with Romeo and Juliet because it gives you, in the way the Titanic does, their continuing connection on the other side, which we don’t have here, right? To me the metaphor of that dischorded piano note at the end speaks of a broken, slightly broken element, where with Romeo and Juliet there was the completion that we can feel that it continues. But it continues connected, not continues in the physical realm slightly broken. Yes, but there is something that doesn’t totally fit there for me."
How do you want audiences to look at what Ben ends up doing to himself?
Will Smith: "To me, that is the storytelling epiphany that I've had. For me, I couldn't bear the possibility that everything wouldn't turn out okay, right? Just as a person, just in my life, the way I was raised, my grandmother made it very clear that God will make a way. So for me and my storytelling and the way that I embrace stories in the way that I embrace characters, I desperately needed to know that everything was okay. I think that my sensibilities are becoming slightly less delicate and I'm venturing out in a storytelling world. The book that woke that thing up for me is The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. It's like I always had an awful feeling at the end of that book. I realized that the value of a story isn't that it just has a narcotic effect. It's that it awakens something in you that makes you want to think, that makes you talk to other people, that stirs something that makes you examine the story that eventually turns into self-examination."
"I'm starting to be a lot more comfortable with allowing people to decide for themselves and almost creating a situation that forces people to decide for themselves whether they like it or don't like it or agree with the character or disagree with the character. For me, the greater purpose of the story is just to illuminate some pattern of human truth. For me, there's tons of that in Seven Pounds. It's terrifying because I'm used to people clapping at the end of the movie, so sometimes, specifically with this movie, it's out on that limb a little more where people need a second to decide how they feel. But artistically it's a bulls-eye for me. I'm hoping that people can vibe it."
Would Will Smith pass your character Ben's criteria for goodness?
Will Smith: "Hmm, that's interesting. Would I pass Ben's criteria? I don't know. I think maybe not. I think that I might be a touch too aware for Ben, right? It's like the way that Ben looks at people, it's like they have a mask on. So he's trying to look under people's mask, right? So I think that when Ben would be looking at me, he'd be concerned that I'm aware that he has a mask on and I have a mask on and, 'I'm okay with the masks but we'll keep talking until we're both comfortable enough to take our masks off.' I think it'd be a little too calculated for Ben. He wouldn't do nothin' for me."
How comfortable are you as chairman of your own success? Do you embrace it?
Will Smith: "It's funny because I look at all of that stuff from the seed inside of me, right? So things turn out, things have turned out really well but there's thousands of people that work diligently to make sure those things turn out really well. So things work in spite of me sometimes. I work from almost a dangerous place in my mind sometimes. I work from the yin and the yang of hope and fear, right? I think at essence, I am fearful, right? I live and I'm motivated by the pain of Jada not loving me one day, right? That idea. I'm motivated by the fear of not being able to help my kids when there's something that they want to do, right? But because I know that hope and fear are connected, I put my mask of hope on. So I just live in the hopeful side, but I know it's the same thing. When the truth of it gets revealed in my private moments, I have a real battle to fight to get back over to the yin side, the hopeful side of that sphere."
Do you bring this to your business?
Will Smith: "Absolutely. I think that when I make a film, I'm terrified that people will come to work and work on something that they're not proud of. It's like we all have those things, you've been a part of something, you've been on a team that you're not proud of and that keeps me up at night. For the cinematographer, for the craft service people, for the other actors, like it's a responsibility in me to Rosario [Dawson] that when she took the role she had these ideas and these concepts and she saw a vision. So for me, for her to come and be a part of this team and for me to not deliver that vision is painful to me."
How is the I Am Legend prequel developing? What is the time frame?
Will Smith: "We have a very, very cool prequel idea. In essence, it's not the title but the idea of it is the last stand of Manhattan. It'll be the fall of Manhattan, the last American city to fall."
So it won't be you alone again?
Will Smith: "No, no, no. It would be an ensemble. The feeling of it that we've been talking about would be essentially Saving Private Ryan."
Do you wish you'd used the alternate ending?
Will Smith: "I know, right? You know, that ending was more conceptually true to the novel but it was one of those things that when you actually put it up in a theater, it doesn't work in movie format. It's like there's a forgiveness that literary audiences will give you that film audiences don't give you. It's the two hour construct. You're in there and it needs to climax and finish. It just didn't lend itself… But yeah, it would've been nice to be around."
Page 3: On Sequels to Independence Day and Hancock
