Week Of October 30, 2006 - Mon / Wed / Fri

November 3, 2006

Something has happened to Will Smith.

His new film, The Pursuit of Happyness, played to a standing-room SAG crowd on Thursday night. And while the screening was not intended to be for reviews, the Q&A afterwards was pretty interesting.

Will Smith: The Showman, has been a big part of making him one of, if not the, biggest movie star(s) in the world. In the great tradition of Schwarzenegger, he supports his movies ferociously and charms everyone he meets along the way, whether one on one or in rooms of thousands. He has that kind of charisma.

But in the Q&A after Happyness, with a few moments of exception, there was a different Will Smith. He was a calmer, less eager Will Smith. This didn't make him any less charming, but it didn't have that "look at me" thing that he normally exudes. Nor did he have the "reluctant movie star" so beautifully engendered by Johnny Depp.

What it read like to me was a major star who just recently came to fully understand that there was more to it than he realized. At one point he said, to a burst of wild applause, that he had decided not to fall below a certain standard of quality every again.

Director Gabriele Muccino (pronounced Gab-ree-el-ee Muh-chee-no) clearly had a major effect on Smith, who continually put him in the same class, in terms of his working experience, with Michael Mann. Smith described meeting Muccino "on the neutral ground" of Paris and having the director tell him that the movie, even if he didn't get to make it, had to be made by a non-American. "Americans have forgotten how to appreciate The American Dream." Smith was hooked, even though Muccino had to start learning English for the film and would continue to develop his language skills as the film progressed.

It struck me during the movie and the Q&A that part of what might be bringing Smith down a tonal notch is the real-life man whose life on which the film is based. As charismatic as Smith is as Chris Gardner, there is something about the real Chris Gardner that is quiet and powerful and charismatic and, in an almost passive way, more powerful than a 20 gallon bucket of charm from one of the world's most charming actors. This is not unlike the situation Smith faced when playing Muhammad Ali. How could anyone compete? Of course, we don't know Gardner the same way we know Ali. (I had the good fortune of meeting him one night over a dining table.) But Smith does. And what else is there to do when lighting up is not enough? You have to act.

On that front, Smith offered a very interesting story about a technique that Michael Mann passed along to him on Ali. In order to find the psychological depth of characters, Mann sends screenplays he is working on to five psychologists/psychiatrists for their analysis. They give him notes about the psychological underpinnings of the characters and their actions.

Smith has taken to using the same 5 therapist technique, which he explained has offered him great tidbits with which to build character. In the case of The Pursuit of Happyness, one of the hooks he got from a therapist's notes was that the intensity of Gardner's relationship with his son wasn't just a man making a commitment to his son in a world where men walk away far too often. There had to be some singular event in the life of Chris Gardner that drove this positive compulsion. And indeed, when Smith asked, Gardner told him the story about how his stepfather forced a young Chris out of their home on Christmas Eve at gunpoint, naked, while once outside, Chris listened to stepdad guffawing. He decided in that moment that he would be "the greatest father ever."

Smith also spoke to his evolution by discussing how he's learned to create a distance between "Will's stuff" and his acting. He doesn't use the technique of using his own history to drive on-screen emotion. He even told the story of how he "fell in love" with Stockard Channing on Six Degrees of Separation, finding himself musing on her long after the film completed production. (He got over it.)

But at 38, it seems that Will Smith is preparing to reach for something greater than just movie stardom. He wants to touch that magic that happens when the work is more than commercial. Is world is well prepared. His business partner, James Lassiter, takes the producing reins over himself, when Smith is acting in one of their pictures, and lets Smith focus on work. Smith's life partner, Jada Pinkett Smith, seems to have found a good balance of work and family, where one works while the other parents, and vice versa. (Jada had a particularly important role on this film, as it co-stars their son, Jaden. She was his on-set support system, allowing dad to do his work and maintain that kind of focus. It is the second biggest role in the film, so she deserve lots of thanks.)

Smith joked to the rapt crowd that he "made Wild Wild West," so he'd happily answer questions about this film "'til somebody drops." And one got the feeling he really would.

He wooed the crowd as well as ever. But he read like a man, not like a charming young rogue. (He did make a couple of jokes about people in the crowd wanting him sexually… but those were the side show.)

It will be fascinating to see whether he sticks to the high level of performing intimacy. In the meanwhile, get those scripts to a therapist or 5. Maybe they'll feel better after a few years.

E Me.

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