From ‘Fresh Prince’ to box-office king

By Hudson Morgan

updated 5:09 p.m. ET Dec. 11, 2007

Will Smith is in an enviable position. Entangled in full clinch with Charlize Theron, he’s wrestling around for a frisky fight scene on the set of the romantic comedy “Hancock.” Sweating and grunting, they grapple in the bucket of a fake bulldozer against a green screen, doing take after take for director Peter Berg and a crew of about 50 standing below. It’s the film’s last week of shooting at Sony’s studios in Los Angeles, and Smith’s hallmark laugh — confident, flagrant, manchild mirth — is the loudest thing on the soundstage, a pleasing basso profundo. While movie sets like these can become a grind, Smith — playing a down-and-out superhero who hires a publicist (Jason Bateman), only to fall for the flack’s wife (Theron) — is churning out DVD extras as he boxes the air, taunts Berg, and keeps Theron in stitches. “Did anyone see Will fall like a girl?” she asks, toppling over in imitation. Finally, on the seventh take of intense tussle, they nail it, so to speak. Smith grins and declares: “That one was kind of soft-porny.”

Remember, this is the Willenium, and you’re just living in it. Whether the camera’s rolling or not, whether he’s getting jiggy or getting real, the 39-year-old Smith exudes the same appeal — an organic hyper-likability that has helped make him the most bankable star in the world, surpassing even Pitt, Clooney, and those white dudes named Tom. With Smith’s last four movies — “The Pursuit of Happyness,” “Hitch,” “Shark Tale,” and “I, Robot” — each grossing over $300 million, and his total worldwide box office topping $4.4 billion, he is as sure a thing in Hollywood as celebrity DUIs, Botox, and paternity suits. Not that you’d ever find him indulging in all that. “I’ve never met anybody at that place who is as grounded and non–full of bull----,” Theron attests. “I don’t say this kind of stuff about people, but he’s godly.”

Everyone — literally, everyone — agrees. Michael Mann, who directed Smith’s Oscar-nominated turn in “Ali,” says, “I would do anything for Will Smith at any moment in time, period.” “Hitch” costar Eva Mendes: “If you don’t like Will, you’re a jerk.” Tommy Lee Jones, his Men in Black” wingman: “If someone had a bad day at home, or is a little bit grouchy or sad, he’ll know it, and he’ll go straight to ’em and he’ll work on ’em until they’re laughing.”

During a late-morning break, the vibe is dorm-loungey on the “Hancock” set. Smith invites me into his trailer, a tricked-out duplex stocked with Balance bars, Vitamin Water, and Cribs-worthy appliances befitting a former fade-topped rapper, including a huge flat screen tuned to ESPN. “I saw race car driver trailers like Mario Andretti’s that pop up, rather than the trailers in Hollywood that pop out,” Smith says, tucking his six-foot-two frame into a banquette. “So I got a guy and asked him, could he design one that pops up and pops out? Go take a look upstairs.” He grabs his BlackBerry and dials his wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, with whom he has two kids, Jaden, 9, and Willow, 7. “Ma-ma, love you to the moon, I’ll call you in a bit.”

Looking for art in big-budget films
Up close — with his sleepy eyes, sly smile, and ears that stick out like small satellite dishes — Smith projects that adolescent jauntiness he perfected on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” As he talks and teases and table-slaps, all you can think is, I’ll have whatever he’s having. Leaning forward, he launches into an explanation of his new calculus in choosing roles, which peaked in edginess with his first major part — as a Ripley-esque hustler in “Six Degrees of Separation” — and have since tended to skew commercial (maybe you didn’t pay money to see “Wild Wild West,” but plenty of people did). “I never worked for money,” he insists. “But the approach has to be the small art film in the blockbuster package.”

Norman Jean Roy / Men's Vogue “My ego is generally attached to pain,” Will Smith says. “The avoidance of pain.”

This December’s “I Am Legend” — an adaptation of the Richard Matheson novel and an aggressive rethink of 1971’s “The Omega Man” — fits squarely within this model. Reprising Charlton Heston’s gunslinging role, Smith plays Robert Neville, a virologist who survives a humanicidal plague only to discover that he’s actually got some pretty gnarly company left on earth. Think “Castaway” in New York City, and then add vampires — but to Smith, it may as well be a biblical epic. “Essentially, this is the story of Job,” he says. “What if there were no special effects? What if there were no explosions? You should be left with a movie you can still watch.”

Before the 10 months of production began, Smith, his manager and childhood friend James Lassiter, director Francis Lawrence, and Akiva Goldsman — who won an Oscar for his screenplay of “A Beautiful Mind” — spent 300-odd hours on the story alone. “It’s not script notes,” says Lawrence, “but Will actually sitting in the room with us while we’re coming up with the script. I’ve never experienced that contribution at this level: structure, emotional beat, really nailing the tone, and how the film plays out.” As a result, the stakes are higher than ever for Smith. “It’s gonna be real scary if ‘I Am Legend’ doesn’t work,” he says, “because I got everything I wanted.”

Given that Neville is alone for two-thirds of the movie, casting Smith was critical. (Fun fact: Arnold Schwarzenegger was once slated to star.) There were the other dividends of having Big Willie Style around. During a chaotic night shoot under the Brooklyn Bridge with 1,000 extras, 250 crew members, and Coast Guard and Army helicopters, a camera jammed just as the temperature was dropping to nine degrees. Smith grabbed a stray microphone and rallied the crowd by rapping his old hit “Summertime” with everyone singing along.

Back in Smith’s trailer on the “Hancock” set, a bespectacled, balding man with a feral look in his eye suddenly bursts through the door, and Smith freezes in alarm. “Hi! Sorry I’m late,” says the stranger. “Somebody tried to stop me coming in.”

Smith eyes the door. “We got,” he calls out, “a security issue!”

My entire body tenses, and for the first time in my life, I wonder if I should attempt to physically protect a movie star. A moment later, Smith’s bodyguard Mike — a towering, goateed fellow who looks like he could start his own rural militia — rushes in. “Come with me, sir,” he says. Suddenly Smith cackles, and the guy follows suit.

“I’m Akiva Goldsman,” he tells me, extending his hand. Smith is looking at me, laughing uproariously. Already I have broken Theron’s only advice for dealing with Will Smith: “Don’t take his (stuff).”

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