Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin - Will Smith

Episode Date: July 12, 2023

Will Smith began his entertainment career as the MC of the hip-hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince. The duo won the first-ever Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance in 1989 for their hit song Parents Just Don't Understand. Will then transitioned into television, starring in the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The breakout role launched Will into becoming one of the highest-grossing actors in Hollywood, with numerous blockbuster hits to his credit: Men in Black (and its sequels), Independence Day, Bad Boys, I, Robot, Hitch, and Hancock, to list a few. ------- Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team: LMNT Electrolytes https://drinklmnt.com/tetra Get a free LMNT Sample Pack with your order. ------- House of Macadamias  https://www.houseofmacadamias.com/tetra Get a free box of Dry Roasted Namibian Sea Salt Macadamias + 20% off Your Order With Code TETRA Use code TETRA for 20% off at checkout

Tetragramaton. Tetragramaton. Tetragramaton. Tetragramaton. Tetragramaton. Tetragramaton. Tetragramaton. Tetragramaton.

Tetragramaton. Tetragramaton. Tetragramaton. It's great, man. It's a good hang. It's a beautiful way to start the day. Yes, man. It's a good hang. It's a beautiful way to start the day, yes, goodness. It's a hang. Beautiful.

I was going to actually suggest that we start with a little guided meditation that will expand our consciousness. I love it. You up for it? Yes, sir. Okay, close our eyes. Yeah. Imagine yourself. Imagine yourself filling this room. So you're no longer just in your body,

but you expand out to the walls of the room. And now expand it to the whole building. So yourself to the whole building. And now let's do the whole town that we're in. Fill ourselves out to the edges of the town. And now we can go out to the state, the whole state. I guess going to the whole state made me cough. Not a dust in the rest of the state. So now we're in the state and now we can expand to the whole planet. We can fill the planet.

And it feels good, it feels good to be out there. And now we can expand to the whole universe. And let's be free. And from that sense, we can unite and now come back and have a conversation. We are now united in this cosmic way, which is a really nice way to get things rolling. Do you see a spiritual dimension in your work? Absolutely. At this point in my for the blend of my spiritual life more overtly into my work. And I've never done that. Yes. Even the idea of starting in that way, that's a gorgeous, beautiful way to begin. I was raised as a Christian, so my grandmother would start everything with a prayer. And for whatever reason, I made the decision that my spirituality was private, and I would, you know, sneak it into my work through my being more than like, you know or overtly in that way that you just started and it's like, that's a beautiful way to begin.

So. And by the way, it's just as good. You know, like it's, I don't think people like to be told what to think, how to act. It's like we embody, we live the way we live. And it embodies an energy. And we bring that to everything we do. Absolutely. You can't not. You can't not.

Right. Absolutely. So that's why I'm asking, if you, so if you live, if there's an aspect of spirituality in your life, it's bound to arrive in you. Yes, absolutely. For sure. I would say everything that I have ever done has always been centered on a base of contribution. All right, I learned really young,

I was taught really young in my family that your actions are inexorably bound to every other person, right? So I was always starting with my family, I wanted to create things that, you know, wouldn't embarrass my mother at work. Right, so I always felt the sense of responsibility and connection.

So in terms of my spirituality, it's the core of everything that I do, always trying to balance my desires as an individual with my responsibility to the collective. It always has seemed from the beginning that you've had an ability to entertain. And I remember my first experience was your first single. I remember when I heard that and I loved it. And it was over the I dream of Jeannie.

I dream of Jeannie, yeah. Which was so cool. Like it was just such a cool. So everything about it was cool. Yeah, that's Jeannie. And Jeff. And your character was really different. I remember it wasn't bragging.

It wasn't about you. Yeah. You were making fun of yourself. Or yeah, self-deprecating was like the... And that was like a taboo in your heart. No, seriously. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, now it was, you know, my family

and I talk about this all the time. Like life is hilarious to me. It takes everything I have not to laugh at the things that happen in life because I know people take them really seriously, but it has been such a gift to me throughout my life and career that like shit is hilarious. And ridiculous. And so it is absolutely absurd. And we can be infuriated by the absurdity or we can enjoy it. And it's been such a gift for me that, you know,

the more difficult and the more tragic that things seem, my mind, maybe partially as a defense mechanism, but partially as just how I see the world, things are hilarious to me. Like how all of this stuff comes together and happens and how God or the universe or the spirit or whatever you believe, how it brings all the things together is amazing and hilarious to me. When you were a kid, did you wanna be an actor?

Was that your dream in life? I think based on my childhood, I had an early recognition that nobody's mad when they're laughing, that nobody's dangerous when they're laughing, right? And as much as you could keep people entertained, the safer you'd be in this world. So I directly correlated being funny with safety. And then later it became more conscious and directly correlated with love,

that people love you when you make them laugh, right? And I had a direct experience in my childhood with my father was abusive and I grew up in Philly and fighting was a real thing. So comedy and love was always above fear and force to me. So it's like I picked funny as the way I was going to move through this world. And it worked.

Yeah, it definitely worked. And then funny combined with story, right? Like I learned really young that, hey, let me tell you a story is magical for human connection. And just as my way of being and something that's really at the core of who I am,

riveting people with a story that's really at the core of who I am, riveting people with a story and comedy is the part of my blueprint. It's what I came here as. That's a big chunk of what I'm here to do. Beautiful. And in listening to your first two singles, it definitely sounds like you're inspired by Slick Rick.

And Slick Rick was known as the, like that was his whole thing, was the storyteller. Yeah, absolutely. It was, everything was like once upon a time. You know, yeah, it felt, it felt like once upon a time. Yeah. And there's also something beautiful about that in that the idea that the stories are like mythology.

They're bigger than what's real. Yes, absolutely. And the way that my mind works, I recognized that the stories that I tell myself directly affect my feelings, directly affect my productivity, my manifestation. So I've always been very careful to tell myself stories that are positive motivation. Even when you were young. Even like, yeah, when I was, you know, by the time I was seven or eight years old, I was deeply in touch with my imagination

as a powerful tool, so to help me feel good. Like I could hide in my mind, you know, really young. I was a fearful child, so escaping into the stories and television was big for me to like go into the creation of a story in my mind was a huge, I guess, safe haven. You know, that I could, I can paint delicious pictures in my mind and spend hours and hours in there without a necessity for anybody else to be involved with it. Beautiful. So cool.

Yeah. Lucky. Yeah. No, it was definitely a magical blessing. It was like there was almost nothing in the world that was, so definitely nothing I experienced at that time, that was so bad that I couldn't get away from it in my mind. Beautiful. And no one taught you this, this was just something that you... Yeah, it was really, it was very natural for me to It was very natural for me to spin tails as a child.

My mother loved it. When I would make up stuff, and one of the games I would play with my mother is I would make up stories and she would have to figure out which part of it was true and which part of it I was making up. Whether or not there was something she needed to do about it. But it was always like the look on a person's face when they're riveted and then when a punchline lands is like ecstasy for me. Tell me about how do you view success? Like what do you see success as and has it changed from when you were young? Yeah, it's definitely transformed. I wanted to be number one. I wanted to be

the biggest actor on earth manifest destiny. The biggest the best everything. And you did all of the stuff. You wanted that. I wanted that. Manifested. Manifested that. And the thing that happened is I thought with that

would come love protection. You know, like, you realize, like, you realize, or I realized at least that you get to the top of all of that and you're still the same insecure little boy you were before you did all of that. Absolutely. Now you just don't have any distractions from it anymore.

Yes, and now the version I've seen and experienced is, you can get hopeless because I spent all of my time and effort to solve the problem. And I did it. Yeah. Absolutely. And it didn't do anything. So, and now what do I do? And it can make it worse. Absolutely. No, absolutely. Absolutely. You can become hopeless because you're thinking, you have the solution and you go for the solution and you spend your whole life to achieve the solution and the solution is not the solution. And I got it exactly how I want it, beyond.

Anything I could have possibly- Could you even make it up to that? Yes. Right, it was perfect and beyond. Yes. And still didn't same solve the problem. You know, so there's a an existential terror that kicks in when you realize there's there's actually nothing in the world to solve that problem. right? So that is the introduction to the abyss.

Yeah, in some ways, you can't really get depressed until your dreams come true. Yes. Right. Like when your dreams come true, you realize, hmm, now what? Now what? I call it so the two places that I think you can get depressed.

One is rock bottom. When you hit rock bottom and literally you're in like the worst circumstance you could have ever possibly imagined. And you know, you hear that in AA they talk about rock bottom is when your life begins. And there's a corresponding place that I call cliff top. Right.

There's nowhere to go. There's nowhere to go. Yeah, it's the both ends of existence where there's nowhere to go, but inward. Right. And it's hard to explain. And you can't even truly have a conversation if someone has an experienced one or the other. No, it's completely unrelatable yes to everybody unless you have the experience. And that's another thing is like when you're a

kid and you have these dreams of being successful and then you get them, who do you talk to? Like no one teaches you how to how to act when you're successful, how to be, what to worry about and your world changes and it's really lonely. Yeah. I remember one time I was going through, I was going through something and I call Quincy Jones because Quincy is always my guy, like, giving me perspective throughout my life. And I was going through something and it was the top of the top post, independent state, men in black, fresh prince, Bella, like I was experiencing everything

I'd ever dreamed. And I call Quincy, and I wish I don't even remember what it was for, but I called him and I laid it all out. And he paused for a second. He said, man, what the fuck am I supposed to tell you? He said, I wouldn't have made none of them decisions that you made. That worked. That worked. Yes. Right. He was like, you know, you're on the dreaded island. Yeah. And I was like, never forget that he called it the dreaded island. Yeah. Right?

And it's when, like, there's really, there's no one that can help you and you, it's the realization that you are the first time you've ever happened. Yes. And people can give you advice and people can make suggestions and you can look at other people's stories. But the next moment and the next choice you're going to make has never happened before and only you can choose it. Yeah.

It's true. And I'll tell you something. I think a crazy thought of mine is that everyone experiences that. Yes. Because we are all singular beings. Yes. And we all have the singular experience of the world. And all of the best advice we get are from people based on their experience.

There's absolutely not yours. There's absolutely not yours. And we all have our own version. Yeah. And I think that's a part of the existential terror, right? Is that, you know, the deepest reality that I've had to come to grips with is that I am alone. But I'm alone with everybody else. Yeah everybody else. We're all alone. We're all alone together. And we're all

scared. And we're all scared, right? And it is, you know, having to having to reconcile reality is, is it can be horrific, you know. It's a lot easier to dilute ourselves than it is to take a really cold, hard look at reality and one of the things, you know, for me was the, you know, my father died in 2016 and that was the first time it ever dawned on me in my life that everybody's gonna die. Yeah. It had never crossed my mind that everybody I know and everybody I love, everything I've created is moving towards disintegration. Yes. Right?

That birth, life, and death are inexorable. Yes. And it was like, my father died and it was like, I just remember I looked at Jada after the funeral. And it was like, oh shit, she's going to die. Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Everyone, yeah. It's a wild. It's a really wild thing, but after, I settled into it and I had a few months where it was just all I could think about with everybody. And then I came back to, okay, so that's the case.

There's no way around it. So now, how do I wanna live? How do I wanna interact with people? Beautiful. With that truth? There's no way around it. You can't escape it. You can dilute and not think about it and all of that. But one day, you're going to get sucka punched. So you can just wait for the sucka punch or you can begin to lean into the mystery and get torched a little bit in the process of trying to reconcile the mystery and to be able to be with life on life's terms.

You know, so that's been the last probably two years of my life in full consciousness of trying to look into the mystery and be okay with it. Beautiful. Beautiful. And you know, nothing has changed. There's another part of it. You're a perception of it changed. Yes, absolutely. But this was always, it was always the case anyway. So it's not like you didn't like you discovered it for your self. Well, it's self, yeah, absolutely. That's just how it is. That's just how it is and how it's always been. And it's like, can you be okay with it

without deluding, without meditating, without escaping, right? Can you stand firmly in the, you know, the truth of what this place is, and still be okay with it? Yeah. And you started by talking about laughing at it all. Yes, absolutely.

A good way. Laughing is fantastic. It's a great way. There's very, very few things above marveling at the humor and absurdity of life. There's very few things that match that. Especially collective laughs. I would, if I would have to say there were a single thing that was my favorite aspect of human existence

is collective laughs. When a group of people burst into laughter at the experience of a singular joke moment experience, that is the, right up there with sex. Right. Well, it's also contagious. Yeah, when you're in a room full of people laughing, you're more apt to laugh.

Absolutely. Other people laughing gives you permission to laugh. Yes, exactly. Remember the first time I went to a chanting like a, it's called Kirtin, where people chant. Oh yeah, no, I love Kirtin. And the first time I went, the person who's kind of leading the chant, chants, and then everybody in the room answers,

at least, chance back. Yeah. And I was so self-conscious. And so no one's listening to me. I know. They're all doing it. Everyone's doing their own thing. But the idea of singing in public felt so uncomfortable

and embarrassing. And then started doing it little by little, everybody was doing it, and I'm doing it, and doing it, and doing it, and by the end of it, you're like completely high. It's a beautiful experience. Yes, it is a gorgeous churning of human energy towards joy and connectivity.

It's like that ecstatic connection is, you know, the, the top of what we can experience here. L-M-N-T. Element electrolytes. Have you ever felt dehydrated after an intense workout or a long day in the sun? You want to maximize your endurance and feel your best? Add element electrolytes to your daily routine. Perform better and sleep deeper.

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These minerals help conduct the electricity that powers your nervous system so you can perform it your very best. Element electrolytes are sugar-free, keto-friendly, and great tasting. Minerals are the stuff of life. So visit drinklmnt.com slash tetra. And stay salty with Element Electric Life. L-M-N-T. Tell me about, you had, tell me if the number's right,

and 12 number one movies in the summer, 12 years in a row. Yeah, I had eight consecutive, and then I had one number two in there. Yeah. So eight consecutive and then I had one number two in there. Yeah. So eight consecutive, uh, number one every year, which is insane. Yeah, that's, uh, it's a crazy number. Yeah, that's a hard one to beat. Was it, was it intentional? And if so, tell me about like what went into the thought process to allow it to happen. Yeah, I had decided that, you know, I wanted to be the biggest movie star in the world,

and in order to be the biggest movie star in the world, you had to make the biggest movies in the world. And, you know, I guess the the science that I put to it was trying to figure out what made movies number one. So during that time, I looked at the top 10 movies and 10 out of 10 were special effects movies. And 9 out of 10 were special effects movies with creatures. And 8 out of 10 were special effects movies with creatures and a love story. So, you know, from Independence Day was a no-brainer, men in black was a no-brainer, Irohbot, you know. And the, I've always, the Star Wars was like my favorite movie ever, and Eddie

Murphy was my favorite actor. So I wanted to be Eddie Murphy and Star Wars. So that was the early formula that I was trying to create. So, you know, movies like I am legend, you know, even men in black. It's a love story, but it's between me and Tommy Lee Jones. Right. So it's that the same form that of a buddy movie. Buddy movies function under the same structural components as a love story. Yeah. So it was, you know, for me, it was also special effects travel globally. They don't need the language. You don't have to understand the language to be in all of a creature and understand.

In each of these cases, did you find the project? Were these projects all that were out there and you decided this is the one I'm picking? Yeah, so I'm sure you've been manager a couple of times. JL James Lassiter. Just all last week. Oh really? I'm just a little less weak. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. So, JL was the master of taste, right? So I'd be working and JL would read everything.

So he's a really prolific reader. So he'd read 10 scripts in a week. And we had our template of what we were looking for. So he would take 10 scripts and bring it down to three, and then I would read the three, and we would make a decision from there. So it was, his taste was leading in that early part of my career.

And then in terms of when you would pick a script, how much, and I imagine it would be different from Project to Project, but how much would your character change based on you playing the character as opposed to the generic version written in the script? So usually, I'm trying to think, if there were, you know, pursuit of happiness was probably the only movie in those early movies that was written for an African American character. So I was always changing it from, you know, however, it had been written with the writer

hoping they were going to get Tom Cruise and ended up with me. So it worked out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it worked out. And it worked out. So, yes, it was always having to adjust to fit an African-American character. But, you know, from me, it was, that was what I did from from Fresh Prince of Belair, working in television, you're changing everything, in television, you're changing everything, like all day long, every day, and you get used to looking at a scene, going to the side with two or three writers, making adjustments and shooting it in 20 minutes. So I was wildly prepared to make the adjustments, to be able to make them quickly,

adjustments to be able to make them quickly. And a part of my concept of going into these circumstances was to be able to do as much of everything that needed to be done as possible. I wanted to understand the cameras. I wanted to understand the marketing. I wanted to understand everything involved to be able to capture myself in the best light possible without having to depend on other people. So I was educating myself with the full process of filmmaking. I had two or

three of my friends that were writers and I brought people out from Philly to keep my voice in alignment with the right slang and all of that. And for those first, probably four or five movies, I was bringing my own team to make the adjustments that needed to be made, and to be able to make them on the fly was critical also. And would you also bring jokes? Yes, oh, absolutely, yeah.

That was the flavor was what I was responsible for. I would say if there were two things that I was doing most in the early part of my career, was the comedic flavor of the characters and the marketing. I have a marketing mind when I start a project, I'm already imagining how I'm gonna sell it. So those were my superpowers and then staffing my weaknesses around there. Cool. Did you ever have any difficult times

with have you come across the arrogance of some of the business people in Hollywood? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would say the big arrogance that can be deadly in these circumstances is people thinking it's the business of movies and not the movie business, right? It's secondarily a business.

You don't have a business without the art. You don't have the art. It's secondarily a business. You don't, you don't, you don't have a business without the art. You don't have the art. It's not right. It, you got nothing. Yes, right. And, and trying to get people to understand in movie making in general, that the vortex, the point where everything comes together is between action and cut. If you don't get it between action and cut, you can't have it. Right, you know. And you know, that arrogance that people think other things are more important than the art. And it's like, I've had to learn how to not make people feel disregarded. Yes.

Yes, it's like, you know, absolutely I understand how important the release date is. But can you understand that we literally don't have time to make the art good. Yes. And if it's not good, you have nothing. You have nothing. You have nothing. And it's such a strange mindset to see people over and over and over again, double down and triple down on nothing. Yes. And it's because most businesses,

like if you're in the, let's say it's 90. Make Coca-Cola, yeah. It's like, you're just eating. Well, let's get another machine to make more Coca-Cola so we could have it in the store for Super Bowl Sunday. Yes, yeah, but equate it to widgets. Yes, absolutely. It's just another product. And it's not. Yes, yeah. But they equate it to widgets. Absolutely. It's just another product.

And it's not. It's not. You know. It really is a totally different thing. And I know it sucks for a lot of business minds because you actually can't get a hold of it. You know. It's a reason why it's hard to get financing a lot for artistic projects

because it's not repeatable. A movie is new every single time and everybody tries to put in systems that they try to follow formula. The most critical decision that will take something over the line or destroy it is in a magical moment that is captured in the creation of the art. There's things like in the pursuit of happiness. There's a moment in pursuit of happiness where I'm in the bathroom and there's just an overhead shot and there's someone banging on the door and laying on my son's laying on my lap in the bathroom

and just I stick my leg out and put my leg to hold the door. Right? And it's such a subtle moment, but for whatever reason, it has a corresponding vibration in the human soul watching that and parents, you're devastated. But just that simple thing and note, you can't plan that. That's right. Reality of the situation. Yeah, and something happens.

That's another point of so much of what's good can't be planned. Can't be planned, right, you know? And it can be planned in a restaurant. If you want to, like, you can plan the meals and you can lay it out and you can have a recipe and you have the seasoning and there's a dish that is repeatable, but not in the process of creating art. But I think that's what makes the professionals or the people who are great at it great is the amount of times that it magically works. Because they don't really control it. No one controls it.

No one controls it. It's like the great jazz players. It's different every night. Yep. Some nights are probably better than others, but the great jazz players, you're probably not gonna be disappointed on any of that. Exactly.

Even you start to recognize that even your mistakes can be beautiful. Absolutely. You're not. Absolutely. The humanity breathes in the mistakes. Yes. Absolutely. It's when you, you have different goals for what you're doing.

And that's what's, well, that's what's happened to me as I've gotten older, wanting to be number one, right, for as an ego process of gaining love, and adoration, and defense, and then transforming into a desire for self-investigation in the process. That whether it's number one or number five or number 10, the process of self-investigation and self-expression is always number one. You can't be anything but number one if you're using it to understand yourself

and understand life and understand humanity and connection and understand love. You're using it as a process of growth and expansion versus using it as an ego defense mechanism. Yes. When you're excited to share it with the world, regardless, regardless. Like it's successful. Absolutely. When you say, okay, we can send it out there. Yeah. It's already successful.

It's successful because what's in it is successful. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, at this point in my age, I'm starting to realize that all the cliches are cliches because they're true. It's like, you know, the really, you know, here people say it's in the process. And oh, it's not, it's not whether you win or lose. It's how you play the game. It's like, oh shit, that's true. play the game. It's like, oh shit, that's true. And how you play the game determines whether or not you experience the broadness of winning versus a, you're shooting for a single point that may not be what the universe, it may not be the win that the universe is offering you. And it's not sustainable at all, and all it can't be, it can't be.

Whereas continuing to do your best, bringing the most of yourself to everything you do, you can do that as long as you wanna do it. For the rest of your life and beyond. Yes, yeah. And for the viewer, they can see an honesty in that. Absolutely. At the core, everybody's trying to figure out how to be here.

Yeah. How to be here, how to not be miserable. Yes. How to not drown in your loneliness. Yes. So everybody's trying to figure out what are the rules to be okay. To be okay.

Yeah. trying to figure out what are the rules to be okay. To be okay. To be okay. And for me, there's nothing like creating a piece of art and the relationships that come from that, the questions that come from that, the self-exploration and the revelation that come from that. It's like the art of manifesting gifts is like there's, there's, you know, the whole of what I've needed to learn about life has been in the process of trying to figure out how to make something that touches people's hearts. Yeah. It's great when it does that, when you're making it, and you have something that doesn't really work,

and then all of a sudden, something works. Yeah. You put your foot out and put it on the door. Yes, and it's like, and it's like, you probably didn't even think about it. It didn't happen. Not at all. It just happened.

It was just you were being natural. Absolutely. And it creates these moments. Yeah. And I'm starting to think also that the best things are a series of moments, maybe even bigger than the story. Like if 10 events happen in a row, and every one of them is compelling and you want to see whatever the next event's going to be. Even if it doesn't make sense, it's a story absolutely. It can still be good. It can still be good. Yes, absolutely. And that's like been a part

of the expansion of what counts as successful for me in my life and in my experiences. And me in my life and in my experiences. And I'm even not totally there, but I'm right on the edge of the full acceptance that there's nothing but success. Yes. Well, if there isn't anything you show up, you're right. You're successful. You did it. The work is to do it. And it's like the universe doesn't offer you anything that you don't need. You might get offered a whole lot of shit you don't want. Yes. But you don't, there's there's nothing that could possibly happen happen that doesn't contain a gift that you need for your comprehension of how to be here joyfully. Yes. Every single thing that happens is designed beautifully for you.

Your experience is perfect for whatever our shortcomings are, whatever our difficulties are, whatever intention we've put out, that what comes back is a perfect curriculum for everything you've ever sought. Yes. And, you know, I'm not 100% there, you know, but this... I don't know if we ever get 100% there. Yeah, yeah. We just keep getting closer.

We just keep getting closer. Yeah, just keeping getting closer. And having those revelations like when your dad passed and that experience is just like, oh, the world's completely different than I understood it. Absolutely. You're like, those like, oh, okay. I let this know all that stuff away from before 2016.

We're gonna throw that away. But yeah, definitely just definitely coming into that space where I am even starting to get a little bit of a smile when it gets hard. A little bit of a, okay, let's dance universe, right? When things when things go wrong when things are not pretty when things are the total opposite of what I want. There's a little bit of a Giggle that starts to happen and I'm trying to cultivate saying thank you out loud in the face of adversity. That's beautiful. Yeah, that's beautiful. I'm not all the way there yet.

That's beautiful. But you're not. The beautiful practice. Yeah, the idea of that. Yep. And adversity is a gift. Welcome to the House of Macadamias. Macadamias are a delicious superfood.

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snack bars come in chocolate, coconut white chocolate, and blueberry white chocolate. Go cannot white chocolate and blueberry white chocos. Visit houseofmacademius.com slash tetra. I wrote a section in the book where I talked about when something happens to you that a tragedy happens. To put yourself in a state of removing yourself from the situation and looking at it like, well, I didn't expect that to happen to the hero in our movie. Yes, exactly. What's going to happen in the next scene? How's it going to happen in the next scene?

Absolutely. Yeah. Because if you look back over your life for every tragic event that happened, it always led to something either that you needed to learn about better situations, something that you were clinging to that gets pulled out of your hands. Absolutely. Leads you to be able to cling to the thing that you really wanted. Yes. Absolutely.

It happens over and over again. Yeah, it always. It's too close to see it close to see it. When it's happening, yeah. And that's like all you can think is, oh my God, I don't want this. I don't want this. I don't want this.

But being able to settle into being able to look at those experiences, I was gonna say minus the fear. It's not minus the fear. The fear can be there, but just not allowing it to make you run. Yes. And Pima, Pima, children calls it leaning into the sharp points.

Beautiful. Tell me a little bit about acting, about going from, like how is the actor in King Richard? Oh my God. Different than the actor in Fresh Prince. Yes.

No, that, that. I would say for every human writing your story down is critical. The process from me of writing my book, going through my childhood, talking to my brothers and sisters, talking to my mother and sisters, I think coming to the consciousness of how you define yourself is critical,

because it's kind of subconscious until you say out loud. Yes. You didn't know you knew it. You didn't know it. Right, you're there. You're there. Yes, you're suffering the consequences of your story

without actually saying it out loud, writing it down. So you can hear how you're defining yourself. And a big part of writing my book was the realization that it actually is stories. It's not experiences. It's stories about experiences that you tell yourself. And when you actually look at it, 90% of the stories you tell about yourself won't stand up to scrutiny.

Your brothers and sisters will say, well, hold on a second. No, that's not what mom said. That's not right. And you go through these things. And I remember the, the, the, what I did is I wrote my book and then I had two weeks I called everybody that I mentioned in the book and I had them come to so we could do a retreat and I read everybody every word that I said about them. And let people respond.

Beautiful. And I hope you filmed that. Yeah. Yeah, we did. Yeah, and it was the first time my mother and I, my father was abusive and it was the first time my mother and I had talked about it. And I described my mother in the book as defiant. And she looked at, she was like, what, what did I do that made you think I was defiant? And I said, well, you know, daddy would hit you and you would just stand there and look at him.

And she said, I wasn't being defiant. She said, I knew that my kids could hear. So I didn't want you to hear me scream. I didn't want you to think he was hurting me. And I was like, that's wild. That's why. Right. So in my mind, the character of my mother was defiant. Yes. Right. But my actual protection. she was like defiant. And she was like, like, she was just, she was trying to protect her children, right?

And it's like, you know, you go through your life with these stories and I was shocked by how much of my stories were fabricated at best. Reinterpretation. Reinterpretation to make it okay. To make it okay. That's how we do it. Yes.

That's how we do it. We see the world. Yeah, something happens. Absolutely. We immediately make up a quick story to explain. Oh, that's why that happened, but we don't know. And for you. And ever more, we're living with this story.

And we're not seeing people for who they are. They become characters in our stories that we demand they fit our interpretation more than, well, let me just let it go and sit and be with the person. Let them tell me, you know, who they are versus me casting them in a certain way in my narrative. So that was a long way back to the King Richard question. I like, I guess you'd say I discovered my inner landscape during writing my book and I realized it was a malleable landscape that it wasn't solid. What I thought of as my life and my story and me was actually not solid at all. It was made up, not unlike the character

that I play in a movie where you take all of these character traits and you put them onto your consciousness and you walk around for a couple of months as that character, it's like my character was no different than that. You pick up these things and you, you're going to, you choose to be a certain way for certain reasons that may or may not have any bearing on what's true and authentic for you deep down at the core. So writing my book, I discovered my inner landscape, and what it did is it deepened my acting ability to be able to deliver an idea. I understood more about humanity and psychology by understanding myself, And then it was at what actors call a toolbox. It's like my

toolbox got so deep and rich and the types of subtle human emotions that I can deliver on camera now is beyond anything I've ever experienced. So beautiful. Yeah, it's beautiful that you got you got to find all of it out. Yeah, and then apply it to something where we all get to enjoy it. Absolutely. Emancipation was really the first thing that I moved into after King Richard

and just my comprehension of human psychology My comprehension of human psychology and emotion is so rich. And then what happens is you play a character someone like Peter in emancipation, that level of experience and that suffering. And every time you interact with an individual's life in that way, it's like a new brushstroke on your soul, right? And it's like a character, playing a character, that kind of depth actually adds to your humanity and your personality, your comprehension, your ability to connect to a human and to find harmony. What I realized coming out of emancipation, sometimes you watch those types of movies,

you experience those types of things that you can come out with anger You can come out with hatred But I found a whole other place in playing Peter where the the most vicious vile hateful human I can now see into the suffering of that being. And I've never been able to do that before. I can, I can sit across from anybody now and recognize the the most vile, the most horrific perceptions and attitudes,

I can see it as suffering. Yeah, I can see it. And we don't know other people's experience. Exactly, we don't know how they see most people are doing their best. Yes. I think everybody is doing the best they can. I think that's the nature of, you know,

the human mind, you can't help but do the best that you can do. You can, you know, your mind can be damaged and your best can be shit. But, you know, I think that we are innately programmed to like do the best that we can do. You know, that was a part time to be able to do the best that we can do. And that was a part of my healing and my relationship with my father when I realized he was always doing his best.

He was working 18 hours a day to feed his kids. And alcohol was how he was able to cope. And then that just led to other difficulties, but he was always doing his best. He was always reaching for love. He just, you know, he got into a difficult downward spiral. Was Ali the first character you played who was a real human being as opposed to a written? Yeah, I think, Ali was, Ali was, yes, 2000, yeah, it was before pursuit. Yeah, I think Ali was, yes, 2000. Yeah, it was before pursuit. Yeah, so Ali was the first time that I played and it was a living human that was going to sit and watch. And let someone we grew up. We all grew up with. The most recognized human on earth at the time, you know, the most photographed

human. How different is it preparing for a role when it's someone that people know and have expectations of versus a guy in the movie? So there's different benefits and difficulties, right? So the benefit is that you can ask the person, right? So you don't have to guess about the psychological movements. If you can talk to the person, you can talk to their families, all the day, if it's an actual person,

there's books written on them, there's less that you have to create as an actor, whereas if you're playing another character, you have to make up their backstory and you have to make up their life experiences. So that part of the work is as if you're playing another character, you have to make up their backstory and you have to make up their life experiences. So that part of the work is done when you're playing an actual person. The difficulty in that though,

is someone like Ali, people know exactly what his voice sounds like. So, you know, I play Peter in emancipation. Nobody knows anything. There's no image. Yeah, you know, I play Peter in emancipation. Nobody knows. There's no image. Yeah, there's, yeah, no image. There's, there's, you know, I get to make it up. But with Ali, it's like, you don't want to get caught doing a caricature, which Ali, you know, because of the sound of his voice and the brashness and size of his personality, you can definitely get caught doing a caricature.

So it's those first couple of moments of the film, can you give them something that transports them into your version, into your interpretation? And the fact that Ali was gonna watch it, I didn't realize that when I took it. Yeah. And I found myself sitting in a theater behind Muhammad Ali. I was like, oh no, this was an awful decision. How cool was Ali by the way? He was fantastic man. Yeah. I remember we midway through shooting, you know, his family had asked me,

they were like, look, just get him to move, get him to come and come to the gym. So it was like my job. So I'm trying to get him to come to the gym and we move around. So I walked in one day and he was sitting down and I tapped his stomach and I say, hey, Chad, what's going on?

What you doing with that? And I said, he said, Oh, this man, this ain't nothing but a young girl's playground. Yeah, you know, it was like he was he was the the brightness of his personality and his joy for life was the thing that I want it most to be able to capture. And it was you know, as an actor, you're looking for that central chord that you can relate to. And that playfulness and that joy of people

was the central idea that I connected to build out my interpretation. What's the physical transformation difficult? Oh, that was excursiating. Yeah, that was excursiating. So from the time I agreed to do it difficult. Oh, that was excursiating. Yeah, that was excursiating. So, from the time I agreed to do it until we finished shooting was a year and a half. So, I did other movies in between, but I was training, you know, for a year before we started, and then six months, up to and through the completion of principal photography. So it was a year of three days a week

and then six months of six days a week. Yeah, and hard. And hard, yeah, now it was, I put on, I got up to 223 pounds, you know, and at the time I was walking around probably at 198, 199, and then, so to put on that kind of weight over the year. How did it feel like in life, that transformation for getting the character from me,

being Will Smith and having this extra muscle? What does it feel like? You know, it was the first time I felt strong. Yeah. You know, I had gotten to a one rep max bench press in a 365 Wow. During Ali. Wow. You know, and it was I was like in terms of my emotional transformation, it was the first time in my

life that I felt I could defend myself. You know, I had always felt fearful. I was a fearful child. I was always fearful. And I had played characters that were, you know, arrogant and strong and mic lowery, you know, try, I was playing those guys, but working on Ali and training with professional fighters was the first time that I actually realized

I could defend myself. Yeah. And it felt good to walk through an airport and not be scared. Yeah, and also I think when you add, when you're physically strong, you also get a mental strength. It's different. Yes.

And it feels good. And it's like a, you can see things better. Absolutely. There is, there is a certain calmness and certainty and other people feel it too and the world begins to move in different ways when you feel strong within yourself. That you know, physical, physical strength is absolutely the first step to mental and emotional endurance and power. And I think it's also closer to our natural state, like as animals. Yes, absolutely.

Like if you weren't strong enough to take care of yourself in the wild, you got to survive. You would survive. So now the way our lives are so, you know, temperature controlled and you know, where we don't have that same strength that feels good to have. Absolutely.

You know, that's one of the things also that I am trying to manage as I'm getting older, you know, I'm 54 now. So I used to be able to go to a gym for eight weeks and being in shape for a movie. And, you know, now it's 12 or 16 weeks and I have to be careful with injury. So there's a certain shift, there has to be lifestyle now.

I used to be able to get away with six months, one way, six months the other way. And now, I mean, it's gonna feel good though. Yeah, it's gonna be a way that, I bet it's gonna be better. Absolutely, for sure, for sure. Cool man, well thank you so much for doing this. This is. Yeah, it's gonna weigh that. It's gonna be better. Absolutely, for sure. For sure. Cool man.

Well thank you so much for doing this. This is good man, feels great. Thank you for stretching me a little bit. And anytime you want to, I'm down the call. I love it. Appreciate your brother. See you. Love you.

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