The Big Picture - Top Five Will Smith Movies and the Bizarre Truth of 'Gemini Man' | The Big Picture

Episode Date: October 11, 2019

As Ang Lee's hyperreal new action movie 'Gemini Man' hits theaters, Sean and Amanda look back at the long, fascinating career of rapper, sitcom star, screen legend, and Instagram icon Will Smith. They discuss the flaws and innovations of Lee's work with 120 frames per second 3-D 4K and the future of how we see movies (0:50). Then, they share their top five Will Smith performances and whether or not he will ever win an Oscar (21:33). Host: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you. along the way. We'll be having conversations with peers, idols, and maybe a rando or two. The Road Taken with CT and Baio, part of the Ringer Podcast Network on all podcast platforms. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the life and times of Will Smith. Yes. Amanda, we're here to discuss Will Smith, of course, because he is the star of a new movie called Gemini Man. He's the star twice over. Twice over. In fact, he is

cloned as a younger version of himself in this film, which is an immensely complicated movie that I'm a little bit concerned that not a lot of people in the world are going to see. So because of that, we're going to take this opportunity to talk about our top five Will Smith performances. How are you feeling about this endeavor? I feel great because Will Smith's really important to me. I am a child of the 90s. I am also a person who enjoys fun things. And I really feel like a quiet narrative on this podcast and perhaps a couple other podcasts is that you don't respect Will Smith enough. Ooh. And it's fine.

Chris Ryan doesn't either. Like Chris Ryan still has never heard the song Miami in full, which I think is a travesty. I mention this like every month on a podcast and I know he doesn't listen to my podcast because he hasn't brought it back up. I'm a Will Smith enthusiast. So it's funny that you say that because I think there's something interesting about Will Smith and that he is, like a lot of people that you admire,

quite a good celebrity. Yes. Quite a good public figure. Not always the best movie star. And it's not something I would have predicted when he first burst on the scene as a movie star. You know, we're going to get way into his career here, but obviously he starts out his career as a rapper and a music figure, very quickly transitions into being a television sitcom star, and then he moves into movies. And within, I would say, a year of being a movie star,

he is a movie star. He is like a major Titanic generational figure. It's evident from, I would say, post six degrees of separation that we're going to have somebody really special on our hands. But before we get too deep into that, I think we should talk about Gemini Man a little bit. Okay. Oh boy. I'm not super worried about spoiling this movie because I don't think that the actual plot mechanics of the movie are terribly interesting. They certainly are not. And they also, no one in the movie seems to care about them. No, they don't. Which is tough. And we can talk about that.

This is, I think, despite all of the Will Smith-ness we're discussing, an enormously complicated and interesting movie to dissect. We don't have to spend too much time on it, but I hope you'll indulge me as we journey through some of the details. I was prepared for the Sean Galaxy brain that's coming. I have a lot of Galaxy brain takes. I've got some thoughts too. I'm ready. Let's go. I know you do.

So the plot of this movie is that a longtime US government assassin essentially retires, but the government isn't through with him, which is a kind of an old saw. We've seen a lot of movies like this over the years. The twist here is that his assassin, who is attempting to take him out after he's been taking people out for years, is actually a younger clone of himself. So we travel to Budapest. We travel to Cartagena. We travel to Atlanta in the United States in search of who is truly behind this betrayal.

And Will Smith is kind of fighting against himself throughout this entire film. It's an interesting movie to use as a lens to look at Will Smith's career. Because it's obviously a movie about Will Smith reckoning with his life and his career. Yes. And it's not really the—it's just not a successful movie. No. It doesn't—the plot is not terribly compelling. I think a lot of the dialogue is a little bit wooden.

There are characters in the film whose roles I don't totally understand. There's a lot of—it's basically a Will Smith one-man performance with a couple of angels and devils on his shoulders throughout, including a devil that looks just like him. The reason it's an interesting movie is because it's directed by Ang Lee, who we discussed this summer on our Sense and Sensibility podcast. Somehow I don't think we'll be talking about sensibility on this podcast. Well, it's a relevant text, I think, because nobody is having a more interesting and diverse directorial career than Ang Lee. Nobody has tried to. That includes Martin Scorsese and everybody else. Ang Lee has tried to make more different kinds of films than anybody else. And he finds himself in the latter stages of his career, and I think he's pushing 65, trying to push the limits of technocracy in movies.

He's looking for ways to develop new cinematic styles and new cinematic technologies. And this movie uses something very specific and very strange. And that thing is called 120 FPS 4K 3D. FPS stands for frames per second. And so what we get is this movie that, you know, we can talk about a little bit about sort of what happens in the movie, though it's a little bit obvious, I think, what's going to happen. You can guess what happens. You can guess what happens.

But because this younger Will Smith is essentially a digitally created character, he's like Gollum, but Will Smith. Okay. The film is shot in a style that to some people, I think, will look like a soap opera. To you, clearly, I think felt a bit like a video game. Yes, that was what I was thinking while I was trying to make sense of it visually while watching it. It's hyper real in a way. Everything is in clear definition. And that's not the way that our eyes and our brains have been trained to watch movies. There is a cinematic style that has evolved over the last 50 years that is almost

panoramic and focus is a significant part of that. The way something in the background can be focused upon the way we can pull back to the forward frame. It's all kinds of styles that manipulate our mind when we're watching something. When you watch this movie, even though it features a de-aged, digitally created Will Smith, it actually looks, quote unquote, more real than any other movie you could ever watch because of the way it's shot. Now, I don't think virtually any human being is going to have that reaction to the movie. What was your reaction to watching a movie that looks like this? I mean, you know, I don't want to go down the philosophy train, but real is a loaded word in this context. To me, it looks distracting. I thought about video games because I was focused

primarily on the perspective and where you are sitting in relationship to the action, that idea of focus and, you know, and it's, you're really close and it's very clear that the camera and the directing is interested in the action and movement as opposed to scene setting and even the humans within it. You don't need the humans to look real. You need the action to look real. And I think the thing to recommend about this movie is there is an action sequence in it that is among the best action sequences I've ever seen. It's a motorcycle chase that essentially turns into a motorcycle fight that after it concluded, even though I was sort of

half involved in the movie and not necessarily riveted by what was happening in the story, as soon as that sequence of events ended, I thought, this is what movies will be.

This is how movies will look because they're able to accomplish things that do not seem hyper fake in a CGI setting that most movies cannot. And if you look back at even Avatar, which was celebrated as a huge technological achievement 10 years ago, looks bad on your TV now. Just looks bad. And I think Avatar 2 might look good when James Cameron gets 10 more years of technology to develop. But Ang Lee is starting to resemble someone more like James Cameron or Robert Zemeckis, somebody who is more interested in pushing the limits of the way that movies can look

and can feel and can be made than the guy who made Sense and Sensibility or The Ice Storm. Or, you know, it's interesting if you use Hulk as the demarcation point for him. He made a Hulk movie. Do you remember this? I remember that. It was not very well liked. No. It was quite a brooding film.

It was sort of a psycho drama, psycho analysis of the Hulk character. But from that time, he makes a lot of very, a varying degree of film. So he makes Brokeback Mountain after that. But he also makes Life of Pi. And then his most recent film is called Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. Yeah, I skipped that one. I know what it's... I didn't need to see the technical science experiment at work, which is kind of... That's what he is. He is at this point in his career decided to focus on filmmaking as a technique, as moving parts, as like as a science project.

So he does remind me a little bit of people like Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock, who were always looking for those techniques to enhance the storytelling. I think in some cases, the technology can get too far ahead of the storytelling. That's what's happened to a lot of his films. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk also used 120 frames per second as its shooting style, but it was just a drama. And there's not a lot of intentionality behind it. There was an effort to kind of create a similarly hyper real emotional experience, but it had sort of the adverse effect for audiences, for those precious few who saw it. I was one of them. I remember seeing that movie in theaters. There was like three people in the theater and I was like, oh,

this isn't going to go well. But you know, this is also the guy who made Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It's not like he hasn't been interested in pushing the limits of what a film can be or look like. It's interesting. I thought A.O. Scott put it quite well in his review about what the physical ramifications of this are, which is Junior,

which is the name of the younger version of Will Smith in the film, doesn't look like the Will Smith of 25 years ago as much as he looks like a 25-year-old who is really, really tired of everyone telling him how much he looks like Will Smith. I thought that that was a pretty accurate description of the uncanny, the literal uncanny valley that we get in the movie. What else kind of struck you about Gemini Man in general? Well, you and I saw it together and we left and you quickly went galaxy brain and you were like

this is the future of movies and I you know we were literally like in a parking lot and I was like I'd like to get out of here but also I want to have this conversation right now but I said to you like I I both you're probably right and also I'm not that concerned. I think there has been a real, there has been some kind of existential response to this movie that you're kind of bringing forward of like, this is what movies are going to look like. And does it mean that actors don't matter anymore? And, you know, obviously the fact that there is a clone plot within the movie and you're just can you replicate Will Smith does even the humanity of a living person in a movie matter going forward and all of the elements are there and I like can really see the the appeal of these intellectual threads and I'm also just like we're gonna have

actors and it's fine like we've had actors since ancient Greece well the thing that you're raising is interesting because there is a subplot in the film that essentially identifies that the cloned Will Smith has been created not just because he is the most gifted marksman of his generation and an effective assassin. It's because a clone will not have to experience PTSD in the same way that the real Will Smith character would. And so it's sort of, as Vince McMahon once put it in the Andre the Giant documentary, cutting out the negatives. You know, you are able to scientifically birth something, maybe not even really a human ultimately if it's lacking that psyche, but a tool, a weapon to execute what you want.

And obviously that is also a stand-in for some of the anxiety that is being created in Hollywood right now. Now, I don't think it has quite the same moral quagmire quality that the movie presents. Right. But, you know, this is the decade in which the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes movies happened. We are not that far removed from Gollum. There is something to this.

I think that's true. And I think there will be more movies that look like this. And we should talk about that. Because I think that kind of like the technical applications are a bit different than like, are we going to have actors? I think probably there will be some action sequences and certain elements of movies that use this technology. You know, the de-aging stuff is already

like the talking point of the Oscars this year because they're using it in the Irishman. So we know that's going to happen. This idea that we just won't have humans in movies anymore. Number one, I hope it's not spoiling. Can I, if you're concerned about like irrelevant spoilers from Gemini Man hit, like, plus 30. But there is that amazing scene that they tack on at the very end when suddenly Junior's at college and they, like, give him a speech about studying humanities.

Which is, like, clearly this movie has enough anxiety about, you know, technical versus human experience in art and in life, I guess. I would argue that the key flaw of that scene that you're describing is it's the only one in which Junior appears in broad daylight. Okay. And so it is maybe not the first time I felt like something was fake, but it's the first time that something was quite definitively fake. We can kind of get away with young Junior Will Smith moving in the shadows in a dark movie, but the technology is not yet there to authentically render a younger version

of Will Smith in broad daylight on a college campus. Right. That's fine. That's a separate situation. Anyway, this idea that movies won't need actors anymore. Just like I said, like they're literally, we've had actors for 3000 years

and we've like innovated the technology tenfold and we still like use humans to tell stories. I think ultimately because that is like what other human beings look for. And also the idea,

humanity and personality is like the driving force of all commerce at this point, like from social media, like to brands who got to have a personality to sell you a cheeseburger anymore. Sure, to podcasting, sure. I mean, it is really true, but for- Do you think Bill would sponsor a cloning program to get rid of his podcast host? I mean, let's not ask him. Bill, we love you. And we love everyone who has invested in the human nature of his podcast host? I mean, let's not ask him. Bill, we love you. And we love everyone who has invested in the human nature of this podcast.

But I'm just saying, for every technological innovation, there also is like a corresponding example of actual human interest being valuable in a monetary sense. So I don't think it's going to totally go away. And at that point, I'm just kind of like, well, if you want to make your action scenes more believable,

like, okay. Somehow, I feel like we get to this point every single time where there's some new existential crisis. And I'm like, I'm not that worried because it's like been weird for a while. I wouldn't say that I'm worried. I do think that, you know, Alyssa Wilkinson at Vox raised this point

in a piece that she wrote about the film, which I thought was quite interesting, which is there is actually kind of a financial crisis around the idea because an actor like Will Smith, perhaps more than any other actor in Hollywood right now, costs a great deal of money. And we've seen in the past, like Grand Moff Tarkin, played by Christopher Lee in the Star Wars movies, appeared in Rogue One. I know you don't know who that is. At least you said Star Wars movie and then I was like, oh, okay.

Which one was that? Rogue One. The guy with the little things on the head? I have no idea what that means. He's got little spikes on various parts of his head? No, no, that's Darth Maul. This is just a plain old British actor playing a general on a spaceship in a movie. Okay.

He's played by the great Christopher Lee, who is a horror film actor of some note. He was digitally recreated for Rogue One. Oh, okay. Completely. And actually Carrie Fisher was as well in a de-aged form in a Star Wars film, I think in Rian Johnson's last film. And, you know know those two things worked to varying degrees of success

and am I getting this I feel like maybe it's the other way around it's actually Grand Moff Tarkin in The Last Jedi and Carrie Fisher in Rogue One

anyway it doesn't matter please don't don't at me Star Wars fans the point is is that we're trying to do this because not it's not just cheaper but it's also expedient

if someone isn't alive and there are a lot of characters in this IP hungry moment where we're going to want to recreate them even if the actor is passed on. And so there is all of this weird tension around the economics, who owns the life rights to something, who owns the life rights to someone's not just persona or physical body, but their spirit in a way, their essence on screen. So it's a little bit of an interesting crisis that this movie raises, even though the movie itself is pretty negligible. I mean, I think the other interesting thing is that it doesn't seem like a lot of people are going to see this movie. So I'm curious to what extent that affects its influence going forward,

because we're having all these concerns about like, what will people pay for Will Smith anymore? And like, will movies look like a video game for forever? But in fact, the market would indicate that people are not ready for that in this moment. I wonder what, whether, because that wasn't true for Avatar, you know, like in some cases a movie is made, then it feels like you have to see it because not just because of the technology, but the nature of the presentation. On the one hand, I would say because of that sequence that I'm describing and a couple of the other action sequences that are pretty good, I would recommend people see it if they're interested in this kind of conversation that we're having. However, it turns out that there isn't a single theater in

America that can actually play the movie in the format it's designed for. This was reported earlier this week. There are 14 theaters in the US which will play the film in 120 FPS, 2K 3D, which is the closest you'll be able to get to what Lee intended, but not 4K 3D. Right. Not a single theater in the country. I don't know what to say to that.

So in a way, Ang Lee is just way too ahead of the curve, even if the script in the film that he made is a little bit behind the curve. Right, but there's such a thing as being so far ahead of the curve that you're actually just not on the curve. You're right.

And that things don't catch up to you. It's like a Laserdisc Blu-ray situation, sort of. Good comparison. You know, there are things that, I mean, I've been hearing about, like, VR is the future of, like, everything, including our jobs for, what, the entire time we've been doing our jobs? It's a great point. And it hasn't happened yet.

And there can be, I mean, this is the interesting thing. If there's nowhere, even in the United States, like theater wise, that can support this experience, then at home, it's going to look like garbage. And imagine on the back of an airplane seat. Can you ever get, can you, is it, is it financially viable or technologically viable for us to get to a place where this, this experience can be possible at home, because that's obviously where we're going from a theater experience anyway, or else it becomes like an amusement park and you go once a while and it's like instead of riding a roller coaster, you go on this whole thing. And that's which is kind of what viewing behaviors are anyway. So I don't I

just he is really far ahead of the curve, but it's not clear to me that we're going to totally get there. The one caveat I'll add to that point, which I think is very compelling, and this was the thing I tried to communicate to you after we saw the movie together. The generation behind us and the generation behind that generation is spending all their time doing two things, playing video games and looking at their phone or their iPad. And the way that things look and the way that things are shot in those experiences is significantly different than the cinematic experience we were raised on. You know, when we grew up and we watched The Wizard of Oz, it was literally created differently. And so we were sort of indoctrinated, systematized into that experience. But if you spend all your time looking at your phone

and watching TikTok, it looks more like Gemini Man, which is sort of strange to say because it's obviously a more primitive technology that is being used to make TikTok videos. But I think that the way that the human brain processes this visual information is changing. Sure, but in that case,

we have like pretty solid evidence that the kids just keep watching TikTok instead of watching movies. Like kids don't care about movies. And the movies they actually do care about is Avengers and that whole world, which Lord knows I have made fun of it. But that is like character building and investing in humans over the span of a decade. People are not there for the garbage CGI. They are there to know what happens to their beloved Spider-Man or whatever. That's right.

Love the Avengers. Sure. Great stuff. You know, but kids actually can have, we have evidence that young people have invested in a different type of viewing experience. And it's not necessarily the way something looks that is informing that for them. Honestly, if somebody can take the storytelling savvy and world building smarts of the Avengers and fuse it with this kind of technology and craft, I'd be curious to see what the results were.

I would too. And I think it would probably be successful and it would make a lot of money. It might take 10 or 20 years, but I still feel like we're rowing in that direction. Now, maybe the last people sitting in theaters will be you and I at that time. But until then, we do have 30 years now of Will Smith to think about, to turn over in our minds, which is just crazy to me that Will Smith to think about, to turn over in our minds. Great. Which is just crazy to me that Will Smith has been around for 30 plus years.

You mentioned you were a child of the 90s. Yeah. When did you first encounter Will? I assume Fresh Prince. Now this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down. And I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there. I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-Air. Or maybe, yeah, I think it would happen. Not parents just don't understand?

Probably not, just because Fresh Prince was early 90s, and I was young in early 90s. So I think it's probably on TBS or whatever. It's airing. And then you catch up. Because I would have been like eight, nine, you know? I don't know. And were you an instant Fresh Prince fan? Of course.

It's a pretty amazing show. It's great. I was young and I was like, wow, this guy's very funny. And it's in 23-minute bites, just like I was used to watching TV. You mentioned the song Miami, which comes after Fresh Prince. Did you engage with him as a rapper when he was a TV star? Or were you like,

this is just my guy, Will, on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air? I'm trying to remember. And I think probably not, just because again, like at 10, I don't think I was watching a sitcom and we didn't have Google or Spotify.

So I couldn't just pull stuff up. And I don't know if I was like convincing my parents to drive me to like the, what was it called? Turtle records. Was that what it was called? Turtle records? I think it was. I think that's where I, I think that's where I bought. That was like your Sam Goody or the wall or something like that. Yeah. And the gift certificates were like little bronze turtles. Um, I don't know. Did you grow up in Avatar? I'm just telling you, I don't think they were like coins with turtles on What? I don't know. Did you grow up in Avatar? I'm just telling you.

I don't think, they were like coins with turtles on them. Oh, sure. Anyway. Like Mario Brothers. I remember exactly the strip mall that it was in in Atlanta. If you grew up in Atlanta in the 90s,

and like, please let me know whether I'm like having a delusional moment right now. But I don't know if I, I just wasn't that active. And, you know, I don't know if I would have connected that many dots to be like, parents, please drive me to buy this single or whatever. Not even Summertime. Summertime was a big deal for me.

I mean, I know about Summertime, but I don't remember when I learned about it and whether it was before or after. Summertime is a jam. Yeah. That's really one of the jams of all time. Should we do our top fives here? What else do you want to say about Will before we get too deep into this? Well, I was just thinking as we were having our conversation about, you know, technology and mediums and how cinema has involved. Also, celebrity has obviously really involved.

And I think Will Smith has been particularly savvy in adapting to the times. Maybe not so much with Gemini Man as opposed to the other ways in which you can consume Will Smith in 2019. But, you know, you outlined it itself. He started as a rapper. Then he was on a sitcom, then he made it to movies. He has, like, been very, he's very brand aware and very savvy and in a lot of ways is experimenting with mediums in the exact same way that Ang Lee has. And it's interesting that they're together.

It's a really good point. One thing that Ang Lee said was there was only one other actor who could have been in Gemini Man because you needed an action star in his 50s looking back on his career right and it was Tom Cruise and it sounds like Ang Lee went to Tom Cruise and Tom Cruise said I can't do it I'm not gonna do it I wonder what Gemini Man is with Tom Cruise it's probably not a bit more coherently plotted movie in any way. It probably doesn't have better dialogue, but it might have a little bit of a different kind of gravitas

because I think Tom Cruise brings a little something different than Will Smith. Yes, that's a good note. Top fives. What's your number five? My number five is the Reggie scene from Bad Boys 2. So... I heard a motherfucker say your name Reggie scene from Bad Boys 2. So. I heard a motherfucker say your name Reggie. You want me to take a Megan out?

How old are you? 15. Shit, nigga, you at least 30. Can you fight? You can fight. Oh, you can't fight. Look at you. Truth be told, this is my number four.

Is it this scene? This is literally the scene that I shared with Bobby, our producer. But like, did you just put this scene or did you put Bad Boys 2? Bad Boys 2 is, let me try to put this as eloquently as I can. An awesome fucking movie. It's an awesome movie. And if you don't have fun watching Bad Boys 2, we're not cool. But the Reggie scene is that that is the scene. I was just going to say that if you've not read Sean's oral history of Michael Bay, you should.

It's great journalism and also will put everything Sean just said into some perspective. I like Michael Bay's movies. Shoot me in the face. What do you want me to do? I actually think that you isolated something interesting about Michael Bay and that was an earnest recommendation. Why can't we do nice things on this podcast? Anyway. Yeah.

The Reggie scene. I mean, that's the funniest two minutes, maybe on my entire list. It's really, really good. I mean, it's a great showcase also for Martin Lawrence and the kid who's playing Reggie. I wonder so much about Reggie and how he's doing. I hope he's all right as well. But it underlines something interesting about will which is well will smith has um a comic energy that is i think different from all of his peers he's not he is

a standalone movie star right because he has something that is uniquely him and so every time you're watching him you are watching him and i think one of the reasons he you know candidly has just not made a lot of really good movies is because he's not a great actor but he's a great presence yeah he's not a bad actor but you it's you're unable to forget that you're with will smith well he i mean he just has like a lot of energy he's really really big energy enthusiasm that's a word that i'm going to use a lot because I really just think he is like enthusiasm in a person. And so when he's trying to do really like serious, solemn stuff, you're just he's not operating on all the levels that he has. And so the other thing that I like about the Reggie scene and the Bad Boys movies in general is that he works really well in a duo. And I think some of his comedic energy is

really when he has someone to bounce off of is when it like really shines. And this is a, this is probably like the ultimate example of that. It's an excellent point. But it goes throughout his career. And when he, when he just has to be like alone and sad, which he's, he does a lot in movies. Like what's the movie where he's just wandering around? It's him and the dog. Uh, the pursuit of happiness. No, that's with his son. Seven pounds. No, that's the movie where he's just wandering around? It's him and the dog. The Pursuit of Happiness? No, that's with his son. Seven Pounds? No, that's with the weird bathtub.

It's like the post-a-lot. Oh, I Am Legend. Yeah, that one. But it's like, you know what I mean? It's just Will Smith. And I know it's a movie star thing to be like, I can carry a movie solo. It's a badge of honor that all those guys have, I guess. But I think he really shines with someone to play off of.

I think it's a great point. And one of the reasons that I wanted to have this conversation is because he's having a very active year. We did, I thought, a very fun episode about Aladdin earlier this year, which is a movie that happened like four months ago. It feels like it was 15 years ago. I can't believe that. He was in Aladdin earlier this year. You didn't movie that happened like four months ago. It feels like it was 15 years ago. I can't believe that. He was in Aladdin earlier this year. And you didn't want him to be a sex-positive genie,

and I still just think that's wrong. You did. You and Andrew Grenadier were both like, why is this genie fucking? And I'm like, why not? Well, that's a movie for children. You want more humanity in your movies.

Why don't you let the genie experience the ultimate form of humanity? I think Ang Lee should have made Aladdin and Guy Ritchie should have made Gemini Man. That's actually a great point. That would have worked out a lot better. He's also in Gemini Man, as I mentioned. And then later this year, he's in an animated movie called Spies in Disguise. And then in January, he's in Bad Boys for Life, the third Bad Boys movie.

Yes. And Will Smith, it feels like, is kind of fighting for his corner. It feels like after a curious four or five year period where he made a lot of serious movies, he made Concussion, he tried to do the superhero thing in Suicide Squad that didn't really work out so well. He made this movie called Collateral Beauty. Have you seen that? I never saw it, though. I really wanted to because you can't believe the setup. I want to start doing a subcategory of episode on this show called The Disaster. Okay. Because Collateral Beauty is kind of like a pretty high-level disaster.

It would be a funny sort of movie to pick over at some point. After that movie, he makes Bright, which is probably one of the most watched things in the history of Netflix, but is not good at all. In fact, I seem to recall being on vacation and watching that movie with you. Which is probably one of the most watched things in the history of Netflix, but is not good at all. In fact, I seem to recall being on vacation and watching that movie with you. Yes, yes. I watched you watch that movie. I didn't watch it. Super, really one of the saddest times of my life.

Pathetic. But my number five, and I'm bringing all this up for a reason, kind of comes in this period, and it's a movie called Focus. My grandfather used to run a cricket game in Harlem. Eventually my father started shilling for him. One day they get burned. Mobbed up guy catches him throwing signals. Oh, interesting. This is half of my number four. Okay. Yeah. So you made me think of this movie, particularly when you said he works well in a duo, because this is a movie in which he plays a con man opposite Margot Robbiebie and i think it's really some of the best work that either of them has ever done and on the one hand i think this movie is quickly being forgotten at time but on the other it was kind of a hit it made like 160 million dollars it's pretty you know released

into a darkness of february kind of schedule i remember i think i was working at grantland at the time and i think of like 15 of us went on a Friday afternoon to go check it out because we were all sort of like, Will Smith, con man, why not? It's pretty good. It does something that I really like, which is it plays on Will Smith's ability to poke fun at his own overconfidence, which I think is something that he's done over the years. And, you know, lo and behold, it's a con man movie and the tables are turned on the con man. You never would have seen that coming. I wouldn't say it's the most original movie in the world. It's part of a long lineage of movies.

It's a good pairing, I think, with something like Matchstick Man. Do I not see everything coming? No. There's some surprises. You're kind of like, huh, okay. Yeah. And he also honestly has not been given a chance to have enough romantic foils in his career. And Margot Robbie is a great romantic foil for him.

She can do comedy. She can do pratfalls, but she can also do serious. She can do kind of simmering. She can do clever. She's a good fit for him. Yeah. And it's interesting to me how as his career goes on and he keeps trying to locate where the center of culture is, that this was one that was a hit, but has no legacy. Right. No way. It's not what you remember Will Smith for. Right. So I wanted to give it a little bit of love. It's on my number four, but I paired it.

With what? With Hitch. Now, on the one hand, it is very difficult for a man to even speak to someone that looks like you. But on the other hand, should that be your problem? So life's kind of hard all around. Well, not if you pay attention. So Hitch is not on my list. And the reason I segued in is because Hitch really is remembered.

And I put them together because they're both the Will Smith charm movies. They are playing on his charisma and his confidence, as you just said. And it kind of gets turned on him. And Focus is the good movie. And I honestly, I do think Hitch is the more fun performance. And it's clearly has stayed in the consciousness for reasons really passing understanding because I rewatched it this week. And I do not know what happens in that movie. That script is just like, they don't know what's happening in that movie.

Holy cow, what? I don't know. I like just get an edit, one edit. But, you know, but it's fine because they just make Will Smith's face blow up halfway through. And that's all anyone remembers. Oh, I do remember that. That part is good. What does he eat? Shellfish or something? Is it a bee sting? They don't even say.

There's just like he's allergic to something. Okay. And then he's just wandering around on Benadryl with his face looking crazy. Because Will Smith also knows that you like to see him looking weird and having funny effects. So they work that into the movie. There's also three minutes at the end where they just all like dance at a wedding. It's like Will Smith and Kevin James and Eva Mendes just doing like full out now.

It's now that we've got love, what are we going to do? Like Bollywood style, like a big number at the end? No, it's more that it's like everyone else is lined up and they're doing like the, what is that called? Conga line? No, just like, it's basically like there's a dance circle around them, except it's like a dance line. And they like kind of all walk down one by one. Oh, like Soul Train style. Yeah.

I got it. Soul Train style. Thank you. And I had watched two hours of basically incoherent movie, and then was just like giggling like a child. Because all I really want in life is to watch Will Smith be fun and dance. You know, he's so good at communicating that levity. Yeah, I think it's such an interesting thing, because that's a movie that is very well remembered,

was a big hit, but I think everyone who loves it also knows it's kind of bad it just doesn't make sense and it's also like it's the closest that you get to a will smith romantic comedy which is like why unless i'm forgetting something but i can't really think of any other pure romantic comedies well as the as the queen b of the rom-com like why do you think that he never really leaned into that approach in his career because he's he's so deft at comedy and light comedy especially well i think in the eras that he was like will freaking smith

the type of rom-com was not a two-hander it It was like entirely female focused. And, you know, you think about like 10 Things I Hate About You and all of the terrible McConaughey. You know, McConaughey is a great example because he's famous basically at the same time. It's kind of like

late 90s, early 2000s. And he does all of those rom-coms, which are just disasters. And it's remembered as the real down point of his career. And they just don't really fit the Will Smith style of being the center of the movie.

And he's willing to be in a duo, but I don't think he's willing to be the love interest, which is kind of, it's just what they were making at the time. Again, it was not a good moment in romantic comedy. So perhaps he just knew that and was like, I'm not going to do this. I always wondered why a lot of the men and women from that generation never really teamed up in something a little bit more classical like that. So, you know,

in the 30s and 40s, some of the best remembered movies are like Bringing Up Baby. Yeah. And it's Cary Grant and it's Katharine Hepburn. Right. Maybe the two single best stars of their kind at the time. But we don't have a lot of movies where, you know, Will Smith and Halle Berry team up or Will Smith and Julia Roberts team up or George Clooney and Halle Berry or Julia Roberts. Like, obviously, George Clooney and Julia Roberts were in an Oceans movie, but that's not in that traditional format that you're talking about.

And I wonder if the genre might have more legs if it wasn't always just kind of Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey and maybe it'll work out. I mean, I think that's true. The Nora Ephron examples are the closest. That's right. And the last one was the last like really good one was You've Got Mail, which is 98. And that's Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. At the height of their powers.

Of course. But I guess maybe the scripts weren't there. You know, it's very hard to recreate a Nora Ephron movie. There are a lot of people who have died trying. And then I have to assume it was also something about at that moment in movie stardom, it was so like, I am Julia Roberts and I can open a movie. It was so individually focused that I just wonder whether they were willing to team up. I know. So many missed opportunities.

I agree with you. It's an interesting kind of counterfactual to think about. So Bad Boys 2 was also my number four. Okay, great. So let's go to your number three. Okay, my number three is Internet Will Smith. This is going to pair well with my number three. Because as I said earlier, alluded to,

I think he has just been really adept at keeping up with the times. And there is also something like really essential and exuberant to Will Smith that lends itself to two minute clips. And my man has gone in. And if you have never looked at Will Smith's Instagram, I know I've made this as a joke before, but it's serious. He has a whole production company working for him just to hyper produce these jokey instagram videos which he has then like segued into remember when he bungee jumped live on youtube i do remember that right which is just him doing that on the internet and now he has a facebook watch show that's called like will smith bucket list and he like swims with sharks and stuff and like does trains for triathlons. He is like fully embraced this idea of I will be the character Will Smith on camera for

the Internet. And it's so good. It's like he just it because it essentialized it gets the essential Will Smithness that as I think what people respond to in his good movies that you're just like, oh, he has a great presence. I want to be around that person. And that worked for him in a lot of mediocre to bad movies, as you noted. And now he can just do it on the internet. Can we talk about Will Smith's laugh?

Seriously, though. I mean, in your yearbook, were you named most likely to have already succeeded? Yeah. Because I feel like it's a big part of his internet persona and obviously his fame as well. He has one of these too loud, raucous, kind of almost like a guttural. You know, it's like it's lodged in his throat somewhere. It's like, you know, he's sucking a lot of air when he's laughing and i feel like the best stars have those kind of physical vocal quirks that you can't get away from yes and i feel like every time you watch him on a facebook watch show or on instagram where he is just basically reinvented his career in a strange way um you can always kind of depend on him almost like

over laughing almost like doing the the the Sunday morning football routine where like everybody is crowded around like laughing at each other's bad jokes. It's funny to watch him kind of grow into that. Well, he has like a style of comedy and also just a style of acting that's like a little too much. He's always so much of even the next two movies, which I'm sure you can guess what they are. He's reacting and he's just being he's the really, really loud, exuberant person. And so a lot of that is physical and the weird noises that he makes and his laugh. And let me tell you what, that's how you succeed on the Internet. So he was just there. But like he literally do you remember the In My Feelings challenge where all the kids were like yes right so you know will smith made one i told you this

as we left the theater you didn't care but it was exciting for me so well i cared i care amanda you can argue that i mean in my feelings was was a thing in respect to all of the the internet users who kind of made that an internet phenomenon this is a reference to the challenge that was born out of the Drake song. Yes. But what took that to a thing that old people like you and me know about, and also what took that to the level that it was suddenly the number one song in America for a very long time because of how Billboard tabulates things, was Will Smith's In My Feelings Challenge,

which he filmed in Budapest while filming Gemini Man. And I swear to you, it's better than anything that was in Gemini Man. But he literally climbs on one of these giant bridges without permits or anything, but with his like multi-person camera crew. Without permits? How do you know?

Should he have had the permits like stapled to his back? Because I think he says we don't have permits in the thing because he's Will Smith and he's smart. And then he's up like basically on Budapest version of the Brooklyn Bridge, like doing his in my feelings challenge. I was like, this is amazing. Shout out to my guy. He likes to go for it. Embracing the internet. There we go. One thing that the internet has embraced is a particular scene that I wanted to point out for my number three. Now, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,

which is technically my number three in full. Okay, yeah. It's not a movie, just like the internet is not a movie. So, isn't it? And isn't The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in many ways?

Because on the one hand, just reliably entertaining show. I think they made like 200 episodes. They're all good. Like, you can just watch any Fresh Prince of Bel-Air today and you'd be like, this is good.

It doesn't matter that it's 30 years ago. It doesn't matter that it's not one of those things that's ever going to be canceled. You know, it's not like in poor taste. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. But it feels like, not that it was this progressive bastion, but that it was something completely new. It was like we'd never seen a family like this. We'd never seen a character like Will, had that incredible theme song, et cetera, et cetera.

But there is a scene in an episode in which his father returns from a long estrangement. He's played by Ben Vereen, incredibly gifted actor Ben Vereen. And the character sort of promises Will's character that they're going to go on a trip together and that they're going to reunite and they're going to reconnect

after many years of estrangement. And Ben Vereen's character, as is his want, ultimately decides he is not going to do that. He ultimately doesn't care about his son and he needs to go live his own life. And so what you get is one of those incredibly tense, almost weird, dramatic scenes in a sitcom. Right.

Why should I be mad? I'm saying at least he said goodbye this time. I just wish I hadn't wasted my money buying this stupid present. A lot of sitcoms that do this don't do it well. I'm sorry. This sequence in particular, I think especially for a whole generation of men who have daddy issues, which has been a frequent topic of conversation on this show of late. Remember this scene.

The clip is like extremely high viewed YouTube clip. And it features a big moment between Will Smith and Ben Vereen, which is sort of very subtle. And it's the best acting Will Smith had done to that point. And, you know, you can sense that he's pained, but he's not really saying anything. And then as soon as Ben Vereen's character decides to hightail it out of there and go back to Philadelphia,

Will Smith has a complete meltdown. I had 14 great birthdays without him. He never even sent me a damn car. Die with him! Way over the top, but also gripping. And then he has this exchange with the actor James Avery, who played his Uncle Phil in the show. And it's just incredibly...

I'm gonna get a great job without him. I'm gonna marry me a beautiful honey, and I'm having a whole bunch of kids. I'm gonna be a better father than he ever was. Difficult to watch. It's really intense and severe. He could ever teach me about how to love my kids! And then,

after they embrace, after this incredibly tense scene, How come you don't want me, man? Credits hit. And the credits hit, and this episode just ends that way. Yeah. Like a tragedy.

Yeah. And I had forgotten that we used to watch sitcoms like this all the time. And I give Will Smith a lot of credit, and the people who made that show a lot of credit for just being like,

fuck it, we are going for an intensely dramatic sequence that is about fatherhood and sons lack of connection to their families

on a show called The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air right yeah so like that scene aside from it just being generally good and I like it

it represents I think a lot of the things that he aspires to and a lot of his movies some of which are not ultimately not that successful but like if you look at The Pursuit of Happiness, which he was nominated for an Oscar for, I believe, it's pretty much in the same thematic realm. It's about a father trying to take care of his son and what he's willing to sacrifice to do it. And it's interesting that you can sense even in the most kind of frivolous period of his career, he kind of always had his eye on something a little bit bigger.

He's trying things always. And like, not just, I'm moved by the spirit to do this. So I'm going to try something like very strategically. I was rereading an old column of Bill Simmons is from Grantland. And it was about Ryan Reynolds and Will Smith. The movie star. Yes, the movie star. I'd actually forgotten that Will Smith was because I just remembered the Ryan Reynolds and Will Smith. The movie star. Yes, the movie star. I'd actually forgotten that Will Smith was,

because I just remembered the Ryan Reynolds part of it. But there is, it's a great column, Bill, smart guy. But there is an anecdote in there about how Will Smith is like, I'd like to transition into movies. And so he just sits down with the box office results and looks through, here's what works. And, you know, we realized like all the,

the top 10 movies had special effects and the nine out of 10, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So he is strategic. I was going to say calculating, but that has negative connotations. I do think he has some vision and it in some ways it is a vision of success, but he also is like, we're going to see what we can do, you know, with what we have. Gemini Man is even a little bit that way. It's trying something. Absolutely. He's always been incredibly strategic and sometimes very, very savvy.

And I would say that my one and two were savvy choices. I don't know what your one and two are. But he had a real sense of where the industry was going, even if he didn't always stick the landing or choose the right parts. Right. You know, he he did make a movie like Hancock, which was released the same year as Iron Man. Yeah. You know, he and you know who wrote Hancock is Vince Gilligan before Breaking Bad started. Like he does. He made Men in Black. He made Independence Day. He he he was there for the event movie moment. And then he was there for prestige movie moments.

And it's funny. I think if you go through his entire filmography, I don't know if he's made a single film that you could describe as a great film. I couldn't. Which is amazing. Yeah. Because he's one of the best movie stars we've had in our lifetime. Mm-hmm. Like I said, good actor, maybe not a great actor, but an incredible on-screen presence. amazing yeah because he's one of the best movie stars we've had in our lifetime like i said good

actor maybe not a great actor but an incredible on-screen presence and even though we're celebrating his top fives there's nothing here that is the stuff of the canon you know what i mean well i i mean of of the city-esque canon for sure I think of the pop cultural canon, like, yes, absolutely. Will they last is an interesting question. Right. Well, but I think the idea of him will last. And whether it's via the dumb Instagram video that I just talked about, or whether it's via Men in Black or whatever, people, or the Miami video, people know who Will Smith is. And to the extent that his career was about creating Will Smith as opposed to being like

one of the great actors, he 100% pulled it off. He really splits the difference to me between two people that we talked about recently on this show, Jennifer Lopez and Brad Pitt. He aspires to both of their visions of greatness he is brand and artist at the same time he's always been successful he's never not been successful

since he was 19 years old which is incredible we kind of take him for granted a little bit but also he hasn't done anything to make us put him in the hall of fame of humanity he's a really fascinating figure so let's get down to our number twos. Mm-hmm.

With all of that in mind, what's your number two? Independence Day. Look at you! Ship all banged up! Who's the man? Huh? Who's the man?

Wait till I get another plane! I'm lining all your friends up right beside you! This is my number one. It is. Okay. I... The only reason it's not number one is because he's not in it a ton.

I know, but when he's in it. I mean, it's fantastic. Welcome to Earth. I know. I mean, that's all it is. It's just, it's the confidence, the slight dickheadishness, the extraness. He's loud. You know, Elvis has left the building.

There's so much of the movie. He's just like kind of in a cockpit and he just kind of has to yell. And that can be a star making location, as we have learned. But it's certainly in this case. But sometimes you're Mark Hamill and sometimes you're Will Smith. You know, he's Will Smith. It's true. It doesn't matter the circumstances.

He was so outsized in that movie and that movie's ambitions and storytelling were so outsized. And I don't mean in the sort of like creatively ambitious way. They were just like, we don't care how corny this is. We're going to capture your attention and hold it. Yeah. And like, I'll never forget that summer when I saw that movie. That movie was the event of the universe when I was, I guess I was probably 13 years old. It absolutely was for me. And I mean, the Bill Pullman megaphone speech is possibly the most important moment in cinema. In my small child brain, I was just like,

this is gripping. Yes. The script, the writing. It honestly still is a really great speech, honestly. I enjoy it. The movie is like borderline terrible upon re-examination it's so hokey and and so manipulative and obviously like the effects don't age well in a movie like that but i thought the will smith stuff just worked perfectly still i mean it's my

number two for a reason the only reason it's not number one is because i like the will smith experience is a little bit about being front and center and just like running the show and so He wanted more. Yeah. In this case I still think of like eight other people

in Independence Day. Well, it's an ensemble cast if you will. Yeah. Judd Hirsch Okay. Jeff Goldblum The Jeff Goldblum stuff

is pretty good. Vivica A. Fox Yeah. Remember that? That was a moment. Yeah. Good movie. I'm a fan of Independence Day.

Me too. My number two is Ali. That man's so ugly when he sweat, the sweat run backwards off his forehead just to stay away from his face.

Okay. Um. Hmm. It's not on my list. I gathered that. I tried actually. I went back and rewatched it.

It's an A for effort. Okay. I don't give out awards for effort, ever, in any realm. He's a very credible boxer. Oh, okay. Interesting. That would not have occurred to me. It's the only time I think he really, truly let a director challenge him.

Okay. Which is something that I wish he would have done more of there's obviously this very well-known story that quentin tarantino wanted him for jangle unchained for the jamie foxx role and he'd agreed to do it and then pulled out at the last minute and there were some rumors that it was because he was un uncomfortable with the content of the film or the way that tarantino wanted to tell that story. I can't confirm whether that's true or not. I wish that Will Smith would turn himself over to filmmakers more frequently because he had the chance to be Clay.

I don't mean Cassius Clay, like Clay in a director's hand. And I think the reason Gemini Man happened, honestly, is because Will Smith, when he was overseas at some point, made a bid on Instagram to Ang Lee and said, Ang Lee, I'm here. I think he was in Taiwan. He said, I'm in your home country. Let's make a movie together. And I think that's why the movie happened. Incredible. Now, I wish he had gotten Ang Lee in 2005 and not in 2019 when he was in his Robert Zemeckis phase. But Will Smith goes to Michael Mann in an interesting period. And I think Ali has moments and aspects of greatness in it.

Okay. And I think Will Smith has moments and aspects of greatness where he's not becoming Muhammad Ali because that's impossible. I actually was watching some clips of Muhammad Ali on the Dick Cavett show this morning. And I was like, we'll never have this again. This is the coolest, most interesting person that has ever lived. It's just riveting to watch him on television talking to Joe Frazier. But Will Smith gets close to an interesting version of Ali. He always looks the part properly. He does something about the internalized pain and frustration and anxiety that Ali has that is really great. And he does also do that thing that you're talking about, which is he's a great dance partner.

You know, he gets to be a dance partner with Jon Voight as Howard Cosell. He gets to be a dance partner with Jamie Foxx as Bundini Brown. Jamie Foxx, also another actor who should always be a supporting actor. So interesting every time he's the supporting actor. So much less interesting to me when he's the star. Right. a supporting actor. So interesting every time he's the supporting actor. So much less interesting to me when he's the star. Right. But Will Smith in that movie,

I just, I admire that he tried to do that. Yeah. And I think it might have scared him off of doing some other things like it. Right. But I like that he did it. And there's a lot about

that movie I like. Right. I kind of assumed it would be on my list and I went back to rewatch it. And it's not on my list just because I realized that what I want from Will Smith

is I don't want him to be someone else. I want him to be Will Smith. There are too few people who can be that shining version of themselves. And it's like you were watching clips of Muhammad Ali. There will never be another of that. And that's a whole other level. But there will never be another Will Smith with his particular blend. He's interesting and has that charisma. And I'm just like, let that shine. And there's something so reserved about— He's muted. You know, I don't want muted Will Smith, as you'll see from my number one pick. It's not interesting to me.

But it's not that it's not interesting to me. It's just that I value him for other qualities. It's not him at his best. Well, yeah, that's true. It's not him at his best. So what's your number one? It's Men in Black. What's so funny, Edwards?

Boy, Captain America over here. The best of the best of the best, sir. With honors. He's just really excited, and he has no clue why we're here. That's just very funny to me. Y'all ain't laughing, though. I just, again, my husband was making fun of me earlier because he's like, why is Men in Black so important to you? Like, it's not that good a movie.

And friends, I rewatched it yesterday. It's not that good a movie. But there is, I guess this is when I was just like, this is the movie star for me. I don't know what to tell you. Sometimes we talk about our childhood on this podcast. I think it just is also, there is that double act, as you said, and he gets to be confident.

I like a little bit of a dickhead in an actor, as we've discovered. I mean, it's true. We also talked about it with Brad Pitt, but I like it when they're flexing a little bit. He's funny. I also just don't know, that movie doesn't We also talked about it with Brad Pitt, but I like it when they're flexing a little bit. He's funny. I also just don't know. That movie doesn't work as well as it did, but that movie worked and was a sensation.

And I don't know who else can sell that. Well, we got to look at it this summer. Right. When Men in Black International was released. And they didn't sell it at all. And it was Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson, two people that you think are good. Right. Two people here like I'm a fan of them. Chris Hemsworth, very charming, has a lot of that, the same antic energy.

And just, no, it didn't work. But it's a miracle that this movie, it's like literally a miracle that Men in Black is a franchise. Like what on earth? It makes no sense. Also, I had to pick a movie that had the will smith credit song because the will smith like the most important thing to me is that you're sitting in the movie theater at the end and then will smith starts rapping really cornily it's really you can't have the full will smith experience without that as you know when we went to aladdin

you got so excited at the end of Aladdin. I couldn't believe that. That's the most excited you were in a movie theater this year. They did a friend like me with DJ Khaled. What the fuck? But also, I was like, 12-year-old me with like loser shit, you know? So sometimes you just have to honor honor your childhood and also i just it's it's just plain will smith will smith makes that movie happen do you think that 12 year

olds around the world are into will smith now i don't know i mean they certainly were into aladdin you know and that's and that's like again that's him channeling his Will Smith-ness into the audience that can find it. I had a fascinating experience. I was trying to find some like Will Smith interviews or just kind of read some stuff over the years. And so I Googled Will Smith GQ because I assumed at some point GQ had interviewed Will Smith and I got pages and pages of results about Jaden Smith.

Like I honestly couldn't even get to the point where it was a piece about Will Smith. Was it like, fit God, Jaden Smith wears hats? It was just like thing after thing about Jaden Smith. And I get that because Jaden Smith is like very, very popular with the young audience that he was targeting. And also like SEO is broken after it before a certain point. It's fine. But I think young people are invested in Jaden Smith, which is like really

interesting in a way because it's basically like Will Smith didn't clone himself, but he really did. He created a next generation of Smiths. That's a real thing that happened. It's funny, too, because you noted that Will Smith has kind of opened his life up to social media. And, you know, we haven't talked about Jada at all and the show that she runs. Oh my God, it's so good. I almost put the introduction to the Jordan Woods episode of Red Table Talk on this

because Will Smith calls in from Bad Boys 3 and just is like dad for two minutes and is like ignore the haters. It's fascinating. But what we get from that vision of their life is very managed. You know, and there's something, I don't want to say inauthentic, that's uncharitable, but there's something created.

Of course. There's something virtual. Of course. About what is happening in that version. years is, you know, Will Smith has treated things the same way that Julia Roberts and Tom Cruise and people of their ilk have treated their careers, which is like, I don't really have to open my life up to you in a 6,000 word profile. Right. Because I don't care. Like it doesn't, no one does that now. Right. But even in 1999, Will Smith was not bending over backwards to let somebody examine him with Freudian psychology. Right. He was, he always had a critical remove from that approach to the things.

And as a star, it served him well. You know, we never got sick of him. We never put too much of our energy into his inner life because he never

even let us in. You know, when I was researching the Fresh Prince episode I was talking about, he was interviewed about it a few years ago, I believe,

for Rap Radar. And some, the interviewer asked him, like, this iser asked him, this scene was a big deal to a lot of young people when they saw it. Where did it come from? Tell us about the experience. And rather than say anything about himself, he only talked about James Avery and everything James Avery did for him in the scene. Now, it's a sincere and kind of moving story that he's telling, but he's telling a story. And he's closing himself off in a way. He's protecting himself from that conversation, which is well within his rights. But it's interesting that he has been so varnished and so closed to the kind of star examination that we put people through

and has seized control of the operation for himself. That's why he's so good at Instagram because he's like, you want to know about me? Here's me. Right. Here's the pruned version of me. I mean, in a lot of ways, he was just ahead of everyone else who's figuring out that that's the way that you do it, which is that you manage what you give to people and you create a brand and identity outside of yourself that tells things. And he was doing that 25 years ago with the Men in Black credits. At the risk of circling the existential drain, I wanted to

ask you a question on a podcast. Oh, great. A couple of weeks ago, Chuck Klosterman was on the Bill Simmons podcast, and he said he had changed his mind about a longstanding theory that he had about the way that people communicate and present themselves on the internet. Which was for years he thought it was a performance and that the authentic person was the person you spoke to. Right. But the person on the internet was part of this character that they had created. Much like the character that Will Smith has quote unquote created. Right.

But now he's changed his mind. And it's the reversal? The reverse. The real person. Yeah. The person who's unafraid to show their true's the the reversal reverse the real person yeah the person who's unafraid to show their true colors is the person on the internet right and in in person when you're speaking with someone they are they're managing things right so the real answer is that neither

are the real person and every interaction that you have in real life is a performance and a projection of something that you're trying to to manage the world. I mean, that's true. Who you present on a podcast versus the conversation you and I will have later this afternoon versus the conversation I'll have in my head are three different things. Which one is the, quote, real me? I don't know. That's for you to decide, just like Gemini Man. That's exactly where I was going with this. Are there any stray Will Smith performances you want to cite? This is a man who's made a lot of bad movies. We've skipped over a lot of them here.

And also a lot of movies that are like not bad, but are completely forgettable. Like I, Robot, which was a massive hit. I had to, I was assigned to see that for homework in some bullshit science class that I had to take at college for science credit. Yeah, because I went to like a liberal arts school, so you had to have like three science credits. And I took, you know, I took the easiest one that was about robotics or something. And so they assigned me iRobot and I didn't go because in college I didn't like doing my homework. Rather than assign you an Isaac Asimov story, they assigned you iRobot? I told you I picked the bullshit class.

Okay. What are you, why are you mad at me? I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at the school. Okay, me too. Legend of Bagger Vance, you checked in on that one?

Jesus Christ. I have seen that movie. I don't remember anything about it, which I am told is good. That I don't remember it. That part is good. The movie is bad. It's a magical African-American character.

It's really just not a win. It's directed by Robert Redford, stars Will Smith and Matt Damon, and't remember it. That part is good. The movie is bad. It's a magical African-American character. It's really just not a win. It's directed by Robert Redford, stars Will Smith and Matt Damon, and everyone hates it. That's pretty hard to do. Yeah. Shark Tale. Don't know what that is.

It's an animated movie. Okay. Did you like it? I haven't seen it. Okay. Are there any animated movies on this list that you have seen? One might call Anchorman 2 The Legend Continues

an animated film. Oh, yeah. Okay. Good cameo in that movie. No, I mean, he's just made, he plays the devil in Winter's Tale. I have not seen that movie. I skipped that whole thing. And it's Colin Farrell's in that? Yeah. And it's very confusing? It's quite poor. Yeah. Okay. No, I mean, this is a really weird collection of movies that he's made we didn't even talk about wild west once okay the old i mean we didn't do it as a 1999 rewatch for a reason is what i'll say it is also similarly a high level fiasco i guess the one notable movie that we didn't discuss which i did not revisit for this conversation but is a relevant movie is six degrees of separation which uh you know he just

he's in a small role in the film he plays a supporting character his character is gay in the film which is notable i don't think he's ever played a gay character since um and he gives what feels like kind of an iteration um it's sort of a precursor to the focus character in some ways because he's sort of an untrustworthy character in some ways we don't really know what his motivations are he pivots significantly inside the story to affect the lives of all the other people it's interesting that he just didn't make any more movies like this kind of like down the middle american dramas well it's interesting maybe in the 90s and then starting in 2000 it's not interesting because they just don't they stop

making them yeah they do and they don't. You know, like there's still versions of them. Like he never appeared in like a Noah Baumbach movie or something like that. Now, maybe Noah Baumbach never wanted him. That would be fascinating. I know. Yeah. But I just, I don't think that's his goal.

That's not his stated. He is, I suppose he has made like, quote, interesting choices and has tried doing some more serious roles. And I think it would be, of course, Will Smith cares about an Oscar and about prestige and recognition in that way. But it's not his priority. Like, clearly, he just wants to be a star and have an empire. And he has for a long time. And it works for him. Let's close on this. Okay.

Do you think Will Smith will ever win an Oscar? Well, I'm looking at his future credits right now. I forgot that he's playing Richard Williams. If that movie's good, that seems like Will Smith gets an Oscar. I mean, who could be more excited about that movie than me? No one. You want to talk about what that means a little bit? Richard Williams, of course, Serena and Venus Williams' father. The father of Serena and Venus Williams,

and who was an integral part of Serena Williams becoming the greatest tennis player of all time, and Venus Williams becoming one of the greatest tennis players of all time in very unlikely circumstances because of the nature of the sport of tennis. And he is a larger-than-life figure and in a lot of ways has inspired the LeVar Balls of the world and kind of the aggressive sports dad, if you will. And Will Smith will be playing him. That's why I asked about Oscar because I feel like we're going to be here next year talking about King Richard, Will Smith's bid for Oscar after many tries in the past.

Amanda, thanks for chatting about Will. It's always my pleasure to talk about Will Smith, Sean. We're going to come back next week and we're going to have a Parasitepalooza. Yes. We're going to talk about one of the best movies of the year. So please stay tuned to The Big picture for that.