Kieran here. It may be heresy to admit this among other cinephiles, but I like Will Smith. I think he’s a talented actor. On a more personal level, I’m not nearly as irrationally annoyed by him or his children as many seem to be. Earlier this week it was announced that Smith and his Suicide Squad director David Ayer have inked Netflix’s biggest film deal to date with their supernatural police thriller Bright. He was once thought of as the industry’s last true movie star. With both this new project and Suicide Squad (out later this year), one wonders what’s on the horizon for Will Smith...
Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith took center-stage during the #Oscarssowhite controversy that hung a pall over the awards season. Their highly publicized boycott of the ceremony, presumably in response to Smith not receiving a nomination for his performance in Concussion was the cause of much debate. Even some of the staunchest critics of the Academy’s two-year run of all-white acting nominees felt that the Smiths were being hypocritical, given Will Smith’s own assertion that “racism is actually rare” only a couple of months prior to the Oscar nominations being announced. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.
It’s naïve to think that Smith suddenly became enlightened to the realities of discrimination in Hollywood after he was passed over and it’s cynical to think that he’s entirely, brazenly self-serving in his attempts to call it out. He does (and has for some time) exist in a very rarified air, after all and he did lose to Black actors on both of his previous Oscar nominations, which may account for somewhat of a blind spot. However you dissect it, Smith didn’t exactly come out of the previous award season with a whole lot of good will.
Smith often feels like a lightning rod in Hollywood and sometimes the criticism is warranted. As stated earlier, I think Will Smith is a very talented. A recent re-watch of his Oscar-nominated turn in 2001’s Ali really threw his talent into sharp relief again. Hopefully Suicide Squad and Bright are both strong showcases for him, suspicious as we all may be in both cases. Looking at Smith’s recent output, fully acknowledging that there are still challenges and prejudices in place in America and therefore Hollywood, I wish he would tap into whatever it was that allowed him to give that performance in Ali. There’s a rare unvarnished, visceral quality to that performance that Smith hasn’t shown us since. Even his forays into adult dramas (The Pursuit of Happyness, Seven Pounds, Concussion) have a certain… gloss about them. A veneer. They feel guarded and safe, especially where Smith’s role and performance are concerned. How refreshing would it be to see Smith star in and help produce an exciting new director’s film, really going for something that we’ve never seen from him before? It doesn’t happen often, but occasionally an actor who’s so rooted in our public consciousness shows us new facets of their range as a performer.
Perhaps Smith has no desire to do this. Maybe there’s no incentive. Suicide Squad will surely make all the money and he already has all of the money. But on the off chance that he does want to get to that sweet spot where artistic concerns and commerce somehow reach that ideal marriage in Hollywood, he’s going to have to challenge himself. And I for one look forward to the day when he does so again. The results will certainly be fascinating and they may well be amazing.