For Will Smith, starring The fresh prince of bel air it was the superstar’s first leading role as an actor. But at one point, if you had asked Smith himself, he didn’t really consider himself an actor until he did. There.
Will Smith never dreamed of being an actor
As many know, Smith started out as a hip-hop artist before transitioning to Hollywood. She had already made her mark in the music industry with her hit single “Parents Just Don’t Understand.” The album on which the song appears, called he is the dj and i am the rapper it went triple platinum, and the song won a Grammy.
But being an actor was far from Smith’s mind at the time. Most of his dreams were related to his hip-hop ambitions.
“I wasn’t even thinking about the chances of being nominated for an Oscar. I never really dreamed of being an actor, I always dreamed of being a rapper,” he said in an interview with Female. “I dreamed of winning a Grammy. That was huge! I dreamed of winning an MTV award. I dreamed of seeing my record at the top of the list, the number one position in a record. I dreamed about it, but I never really dreamed of being an actor.”
Will Smith didn’t see himself as an actor until he starred in ‘Ali’
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After the troubles his hip hop career faced, Smith saved himself by starring in the hit sitcom. The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. This saw Smith enter a new phase in his acting career.
During and after his years on the sitcom, Smith would get his shot at stardom by starring in many commercial hits. But it wasn’t until Ali that he really felt that he became his own actor. Mainly because it was such a departure from his Fresh Prince persona.
“Ali is really the first time I started dreaming as an actor. even with Independence Day, men in black, bad boys – those movies really lent themselves to the very person I created with The prince of Bel Air and with my music, it was still mixing,” Smith said. “I was almost an extension of that person and Ali it’s a complete break from anything he’s ever played or any character he’s ever lived before. So this is really the first time I fully see myself as an actor.”
But it was his years in the fresh prince that made the Oscar winner reject Ali First of all.
“I couldn’t see the road from The fresh prince of bel air for Ali and Michael Mann was the first person to illustrate what he called the curriculum for becoming Muhammad Ali,” Smith explained.
Will Smith once revealed that starring in ‘Ali’ changed him
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For Smith, playing the role of the legendary boxer was not just a job, but a journey. In an interview with ABC News, he revealed Ali put him on a spiritual path.
“I am profoundly changed,” he said. “There is a bittersweet emotion that I feel playing this role… I want the world to be different because I was here. As lofty, crazy, or delusional as it may sound, I want people’s lives to be better because I was here.”
Smith also felt at the time that he had reached the peak of his career.
“It is very possible that it has peaked,” he said. “I mean, I just can’t imagine what else I could do beyond this. It’s really kind of a bittersweet feeling.”
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