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Gabrielle Union Once Said ‘You Have to Be On Your Toes’ Working With Will Smith and Martin Lawrence

Antonio Stallings — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 03:43:00 +0000

Gabrielle Union famously became a part of the Bad Boys film series when Michael Bay cast her alongside Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. It was the first time she’d ever worked with either actor, and Union described it as an unforgettable experience.

How Gabrielle Union got along with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence on ‘Bad Boys II’

Gabrielle Union | John Nacion/Getty Images

Smith and Lawrence welcomed a new member to the Bad Boys family after Union entered the franchise. She famously played Lawrence’s sister Sydney Burnet in the hit film. And since Bad Boys isn’t the same without its weaponry, Union had to learn to work a gun in order to hang with her co-stars.

“Well, the boys worked for about a week before I got there. I got to come in on the following Sunday and got briefed on weapons training. You learned how to shoot all the different weapons. Like the little brother to the Ak47, a number of 9s, Glocs etc,” Union once said according to Black Film.

It didn’t take long for the actor to get the hang of her weapons training, which she also enjoyed immensely.

“I loved it. I’m a former athlete and extremely competitive. I won a couple of the competitions and the guys were kinda surprised,” Union said.

“My husband has always had weapons and I was always afraid. But now that I’ve had weapons training and got comfortable with it, you can’t take me off the range,” she added.

But what seemed like Union’s favorite part about Bad Boys II was getting to work with Smith and Lawrence.

“Oh, my god. They’re like Martin and Lewis for the new millennium. Everyone was like, ‘It’s been 8 years, what’s it going to be like?’ They must have been having barbecues every weekend because they just picked right back up,” she said.

Additionally, Union somewhat felt the best part about Lawrence’s and Smith’s chemistry wasn’t even in theaters for fans to see.

“And the DVD for this is going to be the greatest ever,” she said. “Half the stuff that is the funniest is not even in the movie. They are constantly bagging on each other. There are some amazing improv scenes. Yeah, you have to be on your toes. I got to hang around them before shooting so I got to see their banter. So when you’re filming I can jump in and follow them.”

Gabrielle Union would later lead her own ‘Bad Boys’ spin-off

Union’s stint in the Bad Boys franchise didn’t necessarily end with the sequel. Fans might not have known it at the time, but they’d see Union’s character again in the short-lived spin-off L.A’s Finest. The show was announced in 2017 and saw Union reprising her role as Burnett. Instead of Smith and Lawrence, however, Union would team up with Jessica Alba, who’d play her partner in the television series. The Bring It On star was looking for something specific when it came to her co-lead, and found it in the former Honest Company founder.

“I really wanted a woman that was equally yoked, who could come on [and be] mano-a-mano onscreen and offscreen. A boss, badass woman,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.

The series, which was titled LA’s Finest, didn’t last long, however. It was canceled by Spectrum on October, 2020. Before the cancellation, Union was once asked how she’d feel about reuniting with her old co-stars Smith and Lawrence again. She confided that she’d welcome the opportunity with open arms.

“We are always prepared to be our own thing, just understanding that we do come from the Bad Boys universe. And if there was an opportunity to sprinkle in some of these characters that you’ve seen with Bad Boys or into LA’s Finest, then that will be a treat for the audience,” she said according to Social News XYZ.

However, Union was also adamant that LA’s Finest didn’t need to lean on the original series.

“But we are set up to function individually, independently from what Bad Boys have done. But it would be nice if we popped up, even though they don’t need us over there and we don’t need them over here. It’d be nice. It would be a really cool treat for the fans. It is not a need though, it is more of a want,” she said.

Will Smith Wanted to Get All the Action Movies Out of His System Before It Was Too Late

Antonio Stallings — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 02:45:00 +0000

Will Smith was once known as one of Hollywood’s biggest blockbuster action stars. The actor was well aware of his standing in the genre. At the same time, he was very much concerned about aging out of those kinds of roles.

Will Smith already started to feel his age doing this action movie

Will Smith | Cory Ryan/Getty Images

Smith’s path to movie stardom initially began with action movies. As an actor, he was steadily building his portfolio back in the 90s in works like Six Degrees of Separation and Fresh Prince of Belair. But Bad Boys was the start of Smith becoming the blockbuster star he’d later become. It was something he owed to filmmaker Michael Bay for insisting that he run around shirtless in the movie for this now iconic scene.

“For this scene, I wanted to have my shirt on, and Michael was like, ‘Dude, I’m going to make you a freaking movie star, take your shirt off,’” Smith recalled in an interview on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. “And I was like, ‘Michael, come on man,’ and he was like, ‘Dude, you don’t know, I know!’”

But Bay was right, so much so that the filmmaker frequently joked about wanting half of Smith’s movie earnings.

“To this day, every time I see Michael he’s like, ‘Dude, I should be in for half. I made your career,'” Smith said.

Bad Boys kicked off a trend that’d see Smith becoming one of the biggest action stars in the world. In addition to Bad Boys, the Oscar winner has starred in other big hits like Men in Black and Enemy of the State. But after hitting his mid-30s, Smith realized that being an action star was a lot harder than it used to be in his 20s. He was 35-years-old when he was filming I, Robot, where the wear and tear on his body started catching up with him.

“I started messing up my knee a little bit, my back started hurting. It was taking me a couple more takes to get the stunts,” Smith once said in an interview with The Washington Post. “And I was like, oh my God, it’s started. I, Robot will be the movie that I look back and remember that this is where I started getting old. It gave me the wake-up call of, Uh-oh, you’re not 19 or 20 anymore. If you injure yourself you gotta ice it, take care of yourself properly.”

This made Smith want to do as many action movies as possible before he aged out of them.

“I just feel like I have to knock these action movies out now, because I do not want to be that old dude runnin’,” Smith said. “You know the old dude runnin’?”

Will Smith felt he became a better actor as he got older

Although his physicality might’ve been declining, his skills as an actor were only improving the older he got. This greatly helped Smith when he was filming the feature Gemini Man, a sci-fi action film that pitted Smith against a younger clone. Smith would be digitally de-aged in order to play his younger self. But looking like a 23-year-old Smith was only half the work, as Smith had to act like him, too. The latter was easier said than done, as the movie’s director Ang Lee noted that Smith was a much better actor than he used to be.

“The biggest problem I’ve been saying is that Will is a much better actor today than 30 years ago,” Lee told Entertainment Weekly.

Smith understood what the filmmaker meant after reviwing some of his past work, which he considered embarrassing.

“Ang would show me some of my old performances and he’d say, ‘Look at this. That’s not good, I need you to do that.’ So I got to see all of the tragedies that I committed in entertainment,” he said.

Jada Pinkett Smith Found Being Referred to As Will Smith’s Wife ‘Annoying’

Antonio Stallings — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 03:38:00 +0000

Jada Pinkett Smith may have a lot of love for her husband Will Smith. Still, despite their marriage, Jada Pinkett isn’t always okay with being called his wife.

What Jada Pinkett Smith felt about being simply labeled as Will Smith’s wife

Will Smith | Rebecca Sapp/WireImage

It’s understandable why Jada Pinkett would have an issue with being solely labeled as Smith’s wife. Her husband is a global superstar with many box-office hits under his belt. Although Jada Pinkett might not have seen the same kind of career heights, she’s an accomplished actor in her own right. Still, Jada Pinkett confided that her personal sacrifices also helped Smith’s wildest dreams come true. But these compromises also led to a bit of self-reflection over the years.

“When I look back at my actual actions and ask, ‘Would I have changed the action?’ I go, ‘No, I wouldn’t.’ I would have changed why I made the choice – that’s the difference,’ she explains. ‘So, I’m not going to do that movie because I don’t want to be away from Will that long? It’s like, ‘No, I don’t want to do that movie because I don’t want to do that movie,’” Pinkett Smith told Red.

But Jada Pinkett made it clear that there was no resentment towards Smith for his success. The Matrix Reloaded star even asserted she was happy to be along for the ride. But she admitted being simply seen as Smith’s wife was “more annoying than anything else.”

At the time, however, Jada Pinkett was dealing with so many issues, that the irritation over being called Smith’s wife was pretty low on her set of priorities.

“I had so much going on in regards to so many other emotional difficulties, it was kind of down on the list,” she said.

Jada Pinkett Smith said she was shocked that Will Smith called her his wife at 2022 Oscars

While promoting her memoir Worthy last year, Jada Pinkett revealed a bombshell that surprised many. When Smith hit comedian Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars, he famously shouted at Rock not to mention his wife’s name again. After keeping silent about it for a while, Jada Pinkett shared her perspective on the matter. According to the Girls, Trip star, she was just as surprised as everyone else about her husband’s actions. But it wasn’t only what he did that caught her off guard, it was what Smith called her.

“First of all, I’m really shocked, because mind you, I’m not there. We haven’t called each other husband and wife in a long time,” Pinkett Smith once told NBC Prime Time Special. “I’m like, ‘What is going on right now? Keep my wife’s name out of your mouth?’ I’m really worried for Will because I don’t know what’s going on.”

Jada Pinkett shared that she and Smith weren’t even living together, and were working on a marriage that wasn’t in the healthiest place.

“Still trying to figure out between the two of us how to be in partnership. … In regards to, how do we present that to people? We hadn’t figured that out,” she said.

However, shortly after her remarks, Jada Pinkett clarified that she and Smith aren’t headed towards a divorce despite their separation.

“We will work through whatever. And I just haven’t been able to break that promise,” Jada Pinkett said.

Will Smith called his marriage a sloppy experiment

Smith has also shared some interesting thoughts on his marriage with Jada Pinkett. He admitted that their relationship was far from perfect. But like his significant other, Smith seemed determined to maintain their wedding vows. He made his feelings towards Jada Pinkett clear when he helped her promote her book Worthy at the Enoch Pratt Free Library.

“Jada is the best friend I have ever had on this planet, and I am going to show up for her and support her for the rest of my life,” Smith said according to the Economic Times.

Although he asserted that their marriage could be a bit messy, it seemed to the Smith household that the mess was worth it.

“It is a sloppy public experiment in unconditional love,” he added.

Why Will Smith Evacuated the Sound Stage in ‘Men in Black’ According to the Director

Antonio Stallings — Sun, 06 Oct 2024 23:41:00 +0000

Will Smith was known to goof off a bit with his Men in Black director Barry Sonnenfeld. But at one point, the actor’s behavior hilariously led to the entire film’s crew keeping their distance from him.

Will Smith halted the entire ‘Men in Black’ set by doing this

Will Smith | Jerod Harris/Getty Images

The Men in Black set always seems to be a riot whenever Smith and Sonnenfeld get together. In the past, the two have joked with each other a little too much, to the point where accidents happened.

Recently, Sonnenfeld revealed that another lighthearted incident they had while filming the first movie led to delaying an entire Men in Black sequence. The director described the Men in Black scene where Smith and his co-star Tommy-Lee Jones are riding inside their iconic black car. In reality, Smith and Jones were both inside a pod enhanced with special effects.

“There are locks to prevent it from opening and falling,” Sonnenfeld said about the pod on Let’s Talk Off Camera With Kelly Ripa. “I say, ‘Roll camera.’ And I hear Will Smith go, ‘Oh Jesus, so sorry. Tommy, so sorry. Baz, get the ladder.’ And you hear Tommy saying, ‘That’s fine, Will. No worries, Will. Don’t worry, Will.’”

After he retrieved the ladder, Sonnenfeld discovered that Smith accidentally farted inside the pod.

“And what happened was, Will Smith is a farter. It’s just some people are. And you really don’t want to be inside a very small hermetically sealed space with a Will Smith fart. You don’t even want to be sitting next to him at the Disney ranch,” Sonnenfeld said.

“We evacuated the stage for about three hours,” he added. “And that’s incredible. No, he’s, you know, a lovely guy. Just, he farts. Some do, some don’t.”

Will Smith made Barry Sonnenfeld’s job better

Smith and Sonnenfeld have worked together on all three Men in Black movies. Throughout the course of their partnership, Sonnenfeld has had nothing but kind words to say about the actor. The filmmaker asserted that Smith was more than just a pleasure to work with. He helped alleviate the often overwhelming stress that came with directing a movie. Especially a big-budget venture like Men in Black.

“On MIB, I’m neurotic, and Will is incredibly not neurotic,” Sonnenfeld said in a 2012 interview with Vulture. “I am full of self-loving and self-loathing, and Will is only self-loving. It’s great to have his strength, which he hands over to the director, be it karmic or emotional or just because he’s a powerful actor in the studio system. But he says, ‘What do you need? How can I help?’”

Sonnenfeld asserted that his professional experiences with Smith only improved after the latter’s star power grew.

“He allows me to be stronger. He backs me up. I’ve given up the psychosomatic heart attacks! I use stress more as a dietary tool — I was able to lose 25 pounds during MIB. For me, it’s about unconscious narcissistic rage, because I take any anger I feel and internalize it,” he said.

“So, as a hypothetical, if a prop guy doesn’t show up with the bicycles, or the special-effects guy can’t get the elevators to work, even though he said it would be ready, or you want an actor to do a certain thing and he’s terrible, I’ve decided not to express it but to internalize it so I don’t seem like a yelling a**hole on the set,” Sonnenfeld added.

What Barry Sonnenfeld feels about a potential ‘Men in Black’ sequel

Smith’s sci-fi franchise hasn’t had a sequel since 2012’s Men in Black 3. There was an attempt to expand the series with Men in Black: International, but neither Smith or Sonnenfeld returned for the 2019 movie. As far as an official sequel reuniting the two, Sonnenfeld didn’t rule it out. But he took more of a wait and see approach.

“When people ask about a sequel, I say, ‘Let’s finish this one first.’ We’ll see. It would have to be in outer space,” Sonnenfeld said.

How ‘Hulk’ and ‘The Matrix Reloaded’ Affected Michael Bay’s ‘Bad Boys 2’

Antonio Stallings — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 03:42:00 +0000

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence worked together to create one of cinema’s biggest franchises in the Bad Boys series. But in the second film, Michael Bay was facing some stiff competition from other action movies. This had a small but effective impact on how Bad Boys 2 turned out.

How competition led to an even bigger ‘Bad Boys 2’

Michael Bay, Jerry Bruckheimer and Will Smith | Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Bay hoped to top the original Bad Boys with its sequel, and he was given more resources to do it. The original Bad Boys only gave Bay a budget of $19 million to use for the movie. But playing it safe with the budget led to a much bigger reward, as Bad Boys ended up grossing $141 million worldwide.

All the main players would return for the sequel, including Smith. according to Bay’s interview with BBC, the success of the original Bad Boys resulted in massive pressure when developing the sequel. Especially when Bay’s ideas for the movie might’ve been too grand for its budget.

“Martin and Will seemed like the same guys. It felt pretty much the same, more pressure, and more money at stake. I thought it was going to be a small comedy, but it turned out to be much larger and more complicated than expected. I write my own action scenes and they just kept… expanding,” Bay said.

“We didn’t have a lot of money to make this movie. We had less than Gone in 60 Seconds had. It was tough. I had to shoot really fast. But some things went our way: that house we blew up belonged to the Coca-Cola heirs. They didn’t like it and they were going to tear it down anyway, so we got to blow that up for free. But that’s action movies for you. I’m going in different directions now,” the filmmaker added.

However, one of Bay’s biggest motivations for growing the film’s action scenes was its competition. There were two films Bay had in mind in particular that threatened to overshadow Bad Boys 2.

“Yeah, it’s my over-the-top action, more-violent-than-it-should-be movie. But we were up against and The Matrix Reloaded. What would you do? You know these movies are coming out. Things just have to get bigger,” Bay said.

Why Michael Bay didn’t come back for ‘Bad Boys for Life’

It took some time, but eventually the Bad Boys movies would get two more films to carry on its legacy. Its two sequels, Bad Boys for Life and Ride or Die, enjoyed even more success. They each drew $400 million worldwide at the box office, a significant financial step up from its predecessors. The sequels also experienced more positive critic reviews than the others, proving that the series has only gotten better with time.

However, Bay didn’t return to direct either film. Instead, the franchise was inherited by newer filmmakers Adil & Bilall. Bay handing his franchise off to other filmmakers shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, though. The director once confided long ago that he had nothing to do with developing any more potential Bad Boys stories.

“Pretty soon they’re going to be old boys, okay. Pretty soon they’re going to be retired cops instead of active-duty cops,” Bay once told Fandango. “It’s taken a long time to get that thing going, and I’m not involved in getting it going. They should get it going soon, though. You could definitely get Martin and Will to be funny again – those were fun movies to do.”

Bay said this at a time when he was planning to take on new creative challenges in his career. This might’ve played a part in him leaving Bad Boys behind.

“These movies that I’ve done, they are massive movies,” Bay said of his Transformers films. “They take a lot out of you. I’ve done it enough, and I’ve had a great time doing it. I’m going out with a bang on this one, and I feel like you gotta go out while you’re ahead, you know. I think I’ve had a good run, and I’ve got a lot of other movies I want to do.”

But Smith also once quipped that the filmmaker would’ve been too costly to hire for another Bad Boys.

“Michael is too expensive now, he’s way too expensive,” Smith once said according to Digital Spy.

Will Smith Once Felt People Would Be ‘Rejecting Me’ if ‘I Am Legend’ Failed

Antonio Stallings — Sat, 10 Aug 2024 02:41:00 +0000

Will Smith has made many box-office hits during his long career. But there was one hit movie whose failure would’ve been personally devastating for the mega-star.

Will Smith felt ‘I Am Legend’ hinged on his performance

Will Smith | Alfredo Estrella / Getty Images

I Am Legend was a project that had been circling around Smith for a long time. He was initially supposed to do the project with Michael Bay. But plans fell through, and he’d eventually develop the movie with filmmaker Francis Lawrence. Smith felt that I Am Legend was a unique take on a genre of film he was already familiar with. It wasn’t the traditional save-the-world blockbuster that helped Smith make a name for himself. Instead, the story would focus on a scientist who was seemingly the last and only human being on an apocalyptic Earth.

The Oscar winner found himself more focused on the psychology of his character more than the movie’s special effects.

“What we were trying to do was to completely remove genre; so let’s look at the psychological deterioration of the character and let’s make the small art film version of this movie and then put all of the other elements – the blockbuster packaging – around it. We were just very specific to never say that to anybody at Warner Bros,” Smith once told BBC.

But this made the feature perhaps more personal to Smith than any other film he’d done prior. He felt the horror movie would live or die based on his performance alone.

“There was definitely pressure this time,” he said. “I think that the combination of the amount of work we put into this film and the way that we decided to do it – we essentially employed a different spirit behind making this film that you usually don’t have in film-making. We all took artistic leaps when making this film. But then there was the added element of it just being me on camera for the first hour of the film. I took it that if this film was rejected, people were actually rejecting me more than not liking a film. So it was a huge relief for me on Sunday night when we got the numbers.”

What to expect from ‘I Am Legend 2’

Not much is known about the sequel to Smith’s I Am Legend. The movie, titled I Am Legend 2, was announced to be in development back in 2022. Not too long afterwards, it was reported that Michael B. Jordan will star alongside Smith on the project. Smith confided not too long ago that the movie will be following an alternate ending rather than the conclusion seen during its theatrical release.

“You have to be a real I Am Legend buff to know this, but in the first, theatrical version, my character dies, but on the DVD there was an alternate version of the ending where my character lived. We are going with the mythology of the DVD version. I can’t tell you anything more, but Michael B. Jordan is in,” Smith said at a film festival according to Variety.

Much more recently, the Creed star also gave an update in regards to the film’s development.

“We’re still working on the script and getting that up to par,” Jordan said to People. “It doesn’t have a release date or anything like that. I’m not sure exactly where we’re going to be filming that one, but I’m really excited to get in front of the camera with him. Being somebody that I’ve looked up to for a really long time, to be able to work with Will is something I’m really looking forward to. I’m really excited.”

Will Smith Debuts Powerful New Song That Revisits His Faith

Antonio Stallings — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 17:00:00 +0000

Will Smith has experienced a resurgence in 2024, adding another successful installment to the Bad Boys franchise. But very recently, Smith has also returned to his first love, revisiting his faith with an inspirational new record.

Will Smith connects to fans with ‘You Can Make It’

Will Smith | Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

Fresh off the success of Bad Boys Ride or Die, Smith debuted “You Can Make It” off his YouTube channel Will Smith. He took the surprising track to another level by performing it live at the BET Awards, emerging on stage in a ring of fire.

As the song continues, the fire surrounding Smith is symbolically extinguished by the rain that follows. He’s joined by famous Gospel singer Kirk Franklin and the Sunday Service Choir to bring the song’s message home.

Smith’s song is both personal and relatable. On social media, the Independence Day star confided that returning to music provided a sense of comfort for him. And he hoped his new record would be able to support anyone else in a time of need the same way.

“Through some of my darkest moments, music has always been there for me—to lift me and help me grow,” he posted. “It’s my humble wish that it can do the same for you and bring you all the joy and light you deserve.”

It’s a full-circle moment for Smith. Since his career started as the rap artist The Fresh Prince, it seems fitting that hip-hop would help facilitate his revival.

The actor’s reputation took a bit of a hit in retaliation for slapping Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars. Smith laid low for a couple of years afterward, which left some wondering if his career would end up in permanent remission. But after some much-needed soul searching, Smith seems to be in the midst of a comeback for the ages.

Will Smith explores his faith in ‘You Can Make It’

The song references many ties to traditional religion. It touches on questioning your faith in the face of extreme adversity, and the rewards that might come with perseverance.

“Trying to heal, but the battles of healing, if God is for real you’ll just wonder if he’ll listen,” Smith rapped in his song.

Smith, however, has stated in the past that he doesn’t tie himself specifically down to one religion. According to a 2007 press junket, he’s willing to consider the beliefs of all kinds of faiths. Including Scientology, which Tom Cruise initially taught him about.

“As far as Scientology. I don’t necessarily believe in organized religion,” Smith said. “Tom introduced me to the ideas. I’m a student of world religion, so to me, it’s hugely important to have knowledge and to understand what people are doing. What are all the big ideas? What are people talking about? I believe that my connection, to my higher power, is separate from everybody’s.”

Smith further asserted that there are some elements of religion he does believe in.

“You can’t get where I get if you don’t love the Lord,” Smith once said in an interview on Official Devon Franklin. “You don’t get to sit how I sit and move how I move if you don’t love the lord. You’d be seeing a whole lot of other repercussions.”

But overall, Smith felt that there are things in the universe that people might not be meant to know. Which was an idea that everyone could share.

“All right, lets call everything beyond what we know, let’s call it the unknown,” he added. “Let’s call it the higher power, let’s call it the X-Factor, let’s call it God, let’s call it Allah. Let’s just agree that there is something beyond what we know. Things happen that we can’t control, and things happen in interesting ways that actually have patterns to them. There are things like karma. There are things that are mysteries that seem to have human qualities that are beyond what we understand.”

How COVID-19 Affected Will Smith’s Blockbuster Career

Antonio Stallings — Sat, 18 May 2024 02:43:00 +0000

Will Smith was once known as one of cinema’s biggest blockbuster stars. There was a time when any movie released with his name attached was guaranteed money. But over the years, the 55-year-old believes he hasn’t commanded the same box-office numbers as he once did. And Smith wondered if the recent pandemic played a hand in this.

Will Smith reveals how the pandemic affected his box-office career

Will Smith | Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Smith made it his mission to become one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. He more than achieved this goal by starring in multiple hit films that drew a fortune and broke records. But every once in a while, Smith has wondered if his status as a major box-office draw might’ve lessened over the years. He once spoke of the jealousy he had toward stars like Dwayne Johnson, who was in his position.

“I had a brief moment there where I got stuck on The Rock. He’s doing all these billion-dollar movies, and I got stuck in, and that animal woke up again. But I was like, you know what, I realized there’s never enough. You will never have enough of anything in the material world,” Smith once told The Breakfast Club.

With the success of Bad Boys 3, and the anticipation of its sequel Bad Boys for Life, Smith hoped to restore some of his status. Especially he feels the pandemic might’ve also taken away some of his drawing power as a box-office star. The pandemic completely disrupted the entertainment industry and forced many movies to be released through streaming. This change meant audiences were getting used to consuming media in a new way.

“So, COVID shut it down,” Smith told Entertainment Tonight. “And it was really the birth of the streamers. And the big, giant, daily global summer release; that’s kind of been gone for a minute.”

But Smith seemed confident that the old days were back.

Will Smith couldn’t stop obsessing over his box-office numbers

Smith described succeeding at the box office as a kind of addiction. Speaking with Complex, the Oscar winner described the lengths he went to preserve his box-office accomplishments. This included going online for several hours daily and constantly researching his box office reports.

“It is so addictive,” Smith said about box-office records. “I literally had to detox myself from looking at box office mojo every day, waiting for them to reset the numbers. And, ‘Wow, Bad Boys 3 had a 20% drop in Spain. What happened in Spain between Bad Boys 2 and Bad Boys 3? And what happened to Saudi? How did Saudi go up? How is Saudi equal to Germany?”

Soon, Smith realized he’d have to let go of his box-office obsession and move on with his life.

“It’s madness,” he continued. “So, I had to get out of there. But like I said, the poisoned honey, it’s delicious going down.”

One of Will Smith’s highest-grossing movies helped prepare him for COVID-19

Smith felt one of his movies helped give him early insight into one of the most significant events in human history. In 2007, audiences saw Smith star in the movie I Am Legend. The movie was about a virus that transformed its survivors into vampire-like creatures. Smith portrayed Robert Neville, a character who was immune to the disease that seemed to destroy all of humanity. Being mankind’s lone survivor, Smith’s Neville dedicated much of his time to searching for a cure for the virus.

Through his research for the role, Smith stumbled upon a lot of information regarding viruses and potential pandemics. So, when a real-life pandemic hit the world decades after Legend, the crisis affected Smith as much as anyone else. But he also felt he had a good grasp of the virus and knew how to respond.

“There was a basic foundational comprehension of viruses and viral pathogens that I developed and it really changed my life and how I looked at the world. There’s basic concepts that people do not understand,” Smith once said on an episode of Red Table Talk (via Cinemablend).

Jada Pinkett Smith Once Explained How Her Fantasies Dissolved After Marrying Will Smith

Antonio Stallings — Sun, 07 Apr 2024 21:27:35 +0000

Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith both had to make many compromises to make their marriage work. And although Smith was the man that Jada Pinkett wanted to marry, the visual image she had of her husband didn’t align with the reality.

Jada Pinkett Smith’s expectations for Will Smith were too high

Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith | Rebecca Sapp/WireImage

Jada Pinkett already had some idea of what life would be like after marrying Smith. But the life she imagined was far from what it would actually become. Speaking to rapper Wale on her Red Table Talk (via Entertainment Tonight), Jada Pinkett talked about one of the hardest lessons she learned from marriage.

“Let me tell you, nobody talks about the sacrifice, the deteriorating and dissolving of fantasies,” she told the rapper. “You right now, have in your mind, your perfect woman. And when you find that woman, she will be a goddess to you. We fall in love with the goddess, or the god, within that person, and then when we actually meet the human being, then we gotta learn how to love that one. The reason why it is so important to me to be able to stick it out, to really get to the true meaning of love, in my opinion, it is unconditional. It has to be, because we are all too flawed. No matter how much work we do! It never ends.”

To get to that point of realization with Smith, Jada Pinkett had to get over the fantasy of the husband she had in her head. She confided that the expectations she set for Smith were due to growing up in a single-parent household.

“I came to the table with a lot of pain and a lot of brokenness. And most of all, I came to the table with some hardcore daddy issues,” she added. “It made me really angry towards men. I had very high expectations. I was hard. I could’ve ended up with all kinds of dudes. The way I ended up with Will, I had to change my whole, perspective, because I want you to know something, he was not the dude! But I had to change that. I can’t ask somebody to be for me, what I am not willing to be for them. And what I realized in my partnership with Will, was I was asking him to be a lot of things for me that I wasn’t willing to do for me.”

Jada Pinkett Smith recently shared she’s working very hard to bring back her life partnership with Will Smith

Jada Pinkett asserted that the work and sacrifices she and Smith made were worth it at the time. But recently, her marriage with Smith was put into question. She revealed in an interview that she’d been separated from Smith for quite a while.

“We’re still figuring it out,” she told People. “We’ve been doing some really heavy-duty work together. We just got deep love for each other and we are going to figure out what that looks like for us.”

But it seems she and Smith still hold out hope that their relationship could be fully repaired. In her memoir Worthy, she revealed that she and Smith were taking necessary steps to reclaim what they lost.

“There’s no finding another great love, and I think that’s the point,” she wrote. “It’s like we are in a place now that we are in a deep, healing space. And we are really concentrating on healing the relationship between us. There’s no divorce on paper. We really have been working hard. That’s the whole thing. We are working very hard at bringing our relationship together. Back to a life partnership.”

Jada Pinkett Smith Says 2022 Academy Awards Incident Was a Turning Point in Her Marriage: ‘I Left That Night as His Wife’

Andrea Francese — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 18:11:35 +0000

If you’re confused by the status of Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith’s marriage, you are not alone. Since Pinkett Smith revealed she and her longtime partner were separated for years without anyone knowing, fans have been looking for clues that explain what happened and where the duo are currently. Pinkett Smith cleared up their relationship status in a recent interview, where she revealed that Will Smith slapping Chris Rock during the 2022 Academy Awards was a turning point in their partnership.

The 2022 Academy Awards altercation between Will Smith and Chris Rock was a turning point for the couple

Pinkett Smith and Smith were quietly separated for years before Will Smith charged the stage at the 2022 Academy Awards to defend his wife. The moment turned out to be a pivotal one for the couple. During an interview on CBS Mornings, Jada Pinkett Smith said that the moment seemed to turn things around for her marriage. She said, “I might not have walked in there as his wife, but I left that night as his wife.”

The Girls Trip actor said she and Smith had not called each other husband and wife for a long time before that moment. She insisted that she wasn’t leaving his side, and he wouldn’t leave hers. Still, Pinkett Smith shied away from sharing exactly why Smith reacted as he did. She insisted that that was Smith’s story to tell, although she previously revealed that she and Rock have a bit of a history.

Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith | Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Critics Choice Association

In her book Worthy, Pinkett Smith said Rock had called her up and asked her out, assuming she and Smith were divorcing. Pinkett Smith did not reveal when that phone call occurred. She did not say if that had anything to do with Smith’s behavior at the 2022 Oscars.

What is the infamous 2022 Oscars slap?

The slap that Pinkett Smith references during her recent interviews made headlines in 2022. During the Oscars, Chris Rock made a joke referencing Pinkett Smith’s shaved head. The joke did not land with Will Smith, who was attending the event with Pinkett Smith.

In an unprecedented moment, Smith charged the stage and slapped Rock. The aggravated Smith screamed for Rock to keep his wife’s name out of his mouth. He then returned to his seat. In the fallout from the slap, Will Smith was banned from attending events held by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, including the Oscars, for 10 years. Smith also resigned from the Academy, although he can still be nominated for awards.

Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith | Mike Coppola/Getty Images

While Smith has stayed out of headlines since the infamous slap, he has been working regularly. Bad Boys 4 is set to release in June. According to Variety, Smith is also working on I Am Legend 2. Micheal B. Jordan will star alongside him in the sequel.