The movie Will Smith named as the peak of his career: “I can’t imagine doing anything else”
Will Smith is one of Hollywood’s most recognisable actors today, having gained acclaim for a variety of both intense and comedic performances. Starting young as a rapper, Smith soon traversed music to take himself on to the screen and became a sitcom star in the early 1990s, playing the character of the same name in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. When the sitcom ended, Smith was still only 28.
The show was one of the biggest hitters on television and promised Smith a seemingly fruitful career. However, potential and achieving such promises are very different things and it was Smith’s determination which would see him transition seamlessly into Hollywood. While he had picked up a few roles in the early 1990s, it was the casting of Smith in Captain Steven Hiller in the blockbuster alien invasion movie Independence Day that would shape his career.
The role would pitch Smith as the perfect conduit for action and comedy, something he had begun to display with Bad Boys the year prior. But while the latter was a rough and ready crime flick, Smith as the hero was now being served on to our screens. It was a role he would continue to employ with performances in Men in Black and Wild Wild West — a movie best left unspoken about.
Smith’s career continued to develop and as he searched for more earnest roles, he chanced upon what he would call his peak performance. It would not be the 2019 live-action remake of Aladdin, funnily enough, even if he did pick up $100million for it, but his majestic performance as the titular icon in Ali.
In 2001, Will Smith would take on perhaps the ultimate role for an African American as he played boxing legend Muhammed Ali in the biopic Ali, directed by Michael Mann. Gushing over the role to Blackfilm, he said: “At 33 years old, I have peaked. I can’t imagine doing anything else. The connection that Michael and I had and the mental link that we were able to create was great, along with the desire that I had to depict this hero accurately”.
For his role in Ali, Will Smith won a BET Award for ‘Best Actor’. Additionally, he was nominated for a Golden Globe for ‘Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture’. Michael Mann called Smith’s performance in Ali “ballsy”, and critics seemed to agree.
The movie was difficult for Smith because it dealt with themes of racism and the struggles of Muhammad Ali, an activist and boxer during the civil rights movement. Having to deliver such deeply political performances while also engaging with the personal side of Ali’s life, such as his three marriages, Smith was able to provide a rounded performance that will live on one of the stop shelves of his growing trophy room.
In covering the life of Muhammad Ali, Will Smith said he met the boxer years before the film came out. He reportedly told the actor to tell his story “with conviction”, refusing to allow any punches to be held back when addressing the good and the bad of his life. At the forefront of Ali, Will Smith wanted audiences to understand Ali’s relationship with God. He converted to Islam, a conflict which caused tension in his marriage to Sonji Roi, and cast him as a traitor to America in the eyes of the Christian public.
Considering Smith;s own relationship with God, this would have likely posed another issue to overcome. It could be why he considered the performance so noteworthy in terms of his own career. While it wouldn’t bring him the gold on Oscars night, something he infamously collected for his role in another biopic, King Richard, after slapping host Chris Rock for a joke, the picture was the start of Smith becoming a truly serious actor.
