Will Smith: Playboy Interview

Will Smith shows up for his Playboy Interview on the Columbia Pictures lot after working all morning on Men in Black 2, sharing the soundstage with partner Tommy Lee Jones and a cast of wormlike, chain-smoking, coffee-drinking aliens.

It's frivolous fare compared to Ali, which comes out this month. Ali tells the epic story of The Greatest, including the boxer's transformation from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali, his decision to give up his championship belt during the prime years of his career by refusing to serve in Vietnam, and his redemption in knocking out George Foreman. It is an important role for Smith, one that might determine if he can move beyond the popcorn-picture genre and prove he is as good an actor as he says he is.

In person, Smith has a lot more in common with Muhammad Ali than MIB's Agent J. Like Ali ranting "I told you so" after the Sonny Liston and Foreman fights, Smith is not above boasting about the movie or himself. But despite the influence of Michael Mann, who last pulled an Oscar-nominated performance out of Russell Crowe in The Insider, Ali holds no guarantees for success. From Raging Bull to The Hurricane, boxing bios rarely KO the box office, certainly not enough to justify Ali's budget of $105 million. It's just the kind of risk the real Ali once enjoyed, and Smith relishes being in a position unfamiliar to him: the underdog.

"Ninety percent of people you ask thought this was the worst career move I ever made," Smith says. "To quote Ali, they misjudged, they miscalculated, they got it all wrong. This is the rare film that has the potential for critical acclaim and for becoming a popcorn movie at the same time. It has the most incredible boxing footage ever committed to film. You will never see an actor making films on the level I am, allowing heavyweight boxers to punch him in the face as much as I did. This is the film of the decade. Period."

Even though he's become a globally bankable movie star with irrepressible charm, the 33-year-old rapper turned actor has long been proving himself to doubters. At the age of 18, he told his parents he was skipping college to become a rap star. The industry was fledgling, its proponents mostly rapping about hard lives in the ghetto, something Smith knew nothing about. He was raised in middle-class Philadelphia in surroundings furnished by a father who owned a refrigeration business and a mother who worked for the school board.

Smith was given a year to prove himself. In that time he and partner D.J. Jazzy Jeff won rap's first Grammy Award, for "Parents Just Don't Understand," and became one of the first rap acts to reach platinum status. Other hits followed, and the duo was touring the world and raking in the bucks, with Smith making a stylish impression in videos.

That would prove to be a saving grace for Smith, who promptly blew most of his cash on himself and his friends. He didn't spread enough of that money to the IRS, which provided a much-needed wake-up call. Luckily, the taxman wasn't the only one paging Smith. Quincy Jones and NBC thought his goofy charm might translate to television. Soon, Smith was the star of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, a hit sitcom about a kid who leaves the Philadelphia hood and heads west to live with rich relatives.

The transition to Hollywood didn't take long. Smith showed potential in the movie version of Six Degrees of Separation, playing Paul, the confused but charming gay hustler who appeals to the liberal guilt of a bunch of art-loving New Yorkers and cons his way into their circle, claiming he is the son of Sidney Poitier.

The next big break came with Bad Boys, a high-testosterone buddy action comedy that was originally crafted for Dana Carvey and Jon Lovitz but was reconfigured for Smith and fellow TV star Martin Lawrence. The film turned loose Smith's macho potential and led to a lead role in Independence Day. Playing jet pilot Captain Steven "Eagle" Hiller, Smith kicked alien tail with a gleeful flourish. The sci-fi spectacle grossed more than $900 million worldwide and Smith became a box-office king. He landed subsequent roles in such diverse films as Men in Black, The Legend of Bagger Vance, Enemy of the State and the much-panned Wild Wild West. He won a couple of MTV Awards, three Blockbuster Awards and a nod as Star of the Year from ShoWest, an award bestowed by theater owners. Smith then returned to rap by providing the catchy title song to Men in Black and releasing Big Willie Style, a multiplatinum seller that hatched the hit song "Gettin' Jiggy With It." Smith was on a fast track even if his personal life suffered from it, evidenced by the end of his three-year marriage to Sheree Zampino in 1995. He rebounded from his divorce by falling in love with actress Jada Pinkett. They married in late 1997 and had a son the following summer and a daughter last year (Smith also has a son from his first marriage).

Playboy tapped Daily Variety columnist Michael Fleming (who previously interviewed Kevin Spacey and Robert Downey Jr. for the magazine) to catch up with Smith at this critical juncture in his career. Fleming reports:

"Smith arrived for the interview in light blue warm-ups, still in makeup from shooting scenes all morning. He's tall and rangy, with the easy gait and the broad shoulders of an athlete, obvious testament to the ring hardness gained from endless rounds of sparring to play Ali. Despite his busy schedule, Smith had no problem focusing on the task at hand. And, like Ali, he tends to make numerous boasts and pronouncements that somehow never leave you thinking, Wow, this guy's a jerk. Maybe that's because, like Ali, he carefully thinks about and believes what he says, and he can usually back up his bragging. Any expectation that Smith might have been tired or distracted after shooting a movie all morning dissipated immediately. 'I'm down with you, dog, till the wheels fall off,' he says as we are about to start. He means it."