There are few guarantees at the movies as well as life itself, but for three decades Hollywood had a reliable superstar in Will Smith. He could deliver blockbuster movies to huge opening weekends and he could drive smaller dramas to awards season attention and financial success. But two years ago, M. Night Shyamalan‘s "After Earth" changed all that. The sci-fi flick was trashed by critics, opened at a relatively disappointing number three at box office and proved to be a wake-up call for Smith.
"That was the most painful failure in my career," he told Esquire. "Wild Wild West" was less painful than "After Earth," because my son was involved in ‘After Earth’ and I led him into it. That was excruciating. What I learned from that failure is how you win. I got reinvigorated after the failure of ‘After Earth.’ I stopped working for a year and a half. I had to dive into why it was so important for me to have number-one movies. And I never would have looked at myself in that way," Smith explains. "When I was fifteen my girlfriend cheated on me, and I decided that if I was number one, no woman would ever cheat on me. All I have to do is make sure that no one’s ever better than me and I’ll have the love that my heart yearns for. And I never released that [feeling] and moved into a mature way of looking at the world and my artistry and love until the failure of After Earth, when I had to accept that it’s not a good source of creation."
" ‘After Earth’ comes out, I get the box-office numbers on Monday, and I was devastated for about twenty-four minutes, and then my phone rang and I found out my father had cancer. That put it in perspective —viciously," he continued, adding: "…that Monday started the new phase of my life, a new concept: Only love is going to fill that hole…and I just remember that day I made the shift from wanting to be a winner to wanting to have the most powerful, deep and beautiful relationships I could possibly have."
He goes on to share an interesting anecdote about just how far he used to plunge himself into the roles, to the point where it began to affect him off-set.
"With ‘Six Degrees of Separation,’ I got a taste early of the dangers of going too far for a character. My character was in love with Stockard Channing‘s character. And I actually fell in love with Stockard Channing," Smith revealed. "So the movie was over and I went home, and I was dying to see Stockard. I was like, ‘oh no! What have I done?’ That was my last experience with Method acting, where you’re reprogramming your mind. You’re actually playing around with your psychology. You teach yourself to like things and to dislike things. It is a really dangerous place when you get good at it. But once I had that experience, I was like, ‘no more method acting.’"
You’ll be able to see Method-less, not-caring-about-the-number-one-spot Will Smith next in "Focus," which opens on February 27th.
did you mean to use the phrase "no longer" in the title?
Fix the title!
a huge sucess. Me and my son loved the story and the acting. There is a deep emotional lesson inside, learn to control yourself, free your mind. Quite the movie that you keep remembering. So maybe less people than Black Men watched it but it was a much more immersive experience. Thank you mr Smith
I loved after earth, I\’ll never get why it didn\’t have
I appreciate the honesty.Its refreshing and it makes me have respect for him.he could\’ve easily just talked out of his ass with some cliché comments
Kevin, give your title another look!
"Poor career choices"? If Will Smith was smarter he\’d be broke, because he\’d have said No to all the bullsht he made money from.
Well, Will indeed made some poor career choices. I really like the guy, I think he\’s a talented and highly charismatic actor. Yes, like someone said before, the biggest mistake of his career was to turn down Django Unchained for After Earth. I believe that he would\’ve been better than Jamie Foxx and made the character less passive. Will Smith is electric on screen and I hope he can get back in the game.
Honestly I thought it was a good movie, and still do. I understand that if you weren\’t looking at the movie in a certain way it would seem bad but it has a good story line and Will Smith speaking in monotone all the time only contributed to the story and why he was who he was. Even though some people (including Will Smith himself) think the movie was a horrible failure I think he did good as the character he was portraying as did his son so in my book Will Smith was not demoted, but rather in some way promoted.
Um, its not like Django Unchained did anything for Jamie Foxx\’s career.
Yet and still all you haters will flock to the theaters too see his films. You don\’t have to pretend with me; I know that\’s what your going to do.
Will Smith here pretty much admitting he\’s built a career off mediocrity and bad lead choices.
\’Time is a flat circle.\’
-Jaden Smith
\’Be water, my friend.\’
Will Smith
"When I was fifteen my girlfriend cheated on me, and I decided that if I was number one, no woman would ever cheat on me. All I have to do is make sure that no one\’s ever better than me and I\’ll have the love that my heart yearns for. And I never released that [feeling] and moved into a mature way of looking at the world and my artistry and love until the failure of After Earth, when I had to accept that it\’s not a good source of creation."
Meanwhile, on Earth…
"What I learned from that failure is how you win." Seems like he read lots of self-help books.
Oh No! I love Stockard Channing too! I need help!!
He signed on for an M. Night Shyamalan film instead of doing Tarantino\’s Django Unchained. What the hell did he expect?
At least he gets that being #1 won\’t save you from yourself, and you need to keep relationships to others your highest priority in life. It\’s shitty it took him getting his ego checked with a disastrous Shyamalan movie to realize that, but whatevs.
That\’s why Tom Cruise won\’t play any complex, emotionally troubled characters anymore, because as a scientologist he doesn\’t want to mess with his psychology.
Glad to see where Jaden gets his crazy.