Will Smith Interview

Welcome to the Willennium

Everything he touches turns to gold, and now Will Smith wants to be President
of the US

Most people would be satisfied with selling 20 million albums and being the
star of two of the Top 10 movies of all time. Not Will Smith. The Big Willy has
far bigger fish to fry - the ambitious star has his sights on the top job, as
President of the United States. And the Man In Black is not kidding.

"Maybe one day," says the singer in a rare serious moment. "I just think acting
and rapping is a pit-stop. They are something I do for fun but it's too easy
for me for that to be my calling. My true calling has to be something hard, and
to be able to affect change and leave a mark on the world bigger than 20
million albums."

Will, 31, has even bagged his bedroom at the White House after spending a night
there as Bill Clinton's guest.

"I told Bill that he should keep my room warm," laughs Will, as we chat in the
Lanesborough Hotel before he rushes off for a rehearsal of his Brit Award
performance. "It was very funny talking to him about the difficulty of being a
President. It's a thankless job. You can never please everybody."

Just when I think he's been pulling my leg all along he goes all serious on me
again.

"I joke about the presidency but I do feel there is something else for me," he
adds with a furrowed brow. "But I would have to be able to live out my agenda
without necessarily catering to my constituency." Maybe as king of America, I
suggest. "Yes, a lovely dictatorship," he says laughing.

For a man who has successfully charmed the entertainment world, it isn't beyond
the realms of possibility that he could, to steal the title of his hit single,
get everyone in Washington Jiggy Wit' It. Right now he is the most successful
black star in the world having already outdone his nearest rival, Eddie Murphy.

He is the only black actor who can command pounds 13 million a movie and
guarantee it to be a hit, and he has conquered the music industry with his rap,
taking the street medium into the mainstream. He has a new single out, Freakin'
It, the second from his best-selling Willennium album, and Will is planning a
world tour in the summer.

Speaking to Will, who is looking every inch a big star in brown leather
trousers and waistcoat, is a pleasure. He doesn't have any of the airs and
graces many Hollywood superstars affect. He doesn't even take offence when I
point out that his ego is so big he must have had to enlarge the doors of the
pounds 7 million Malibu mansion he shares with his actress wife Jada Pinkett
and sons Trey, seven, and one-year-old Jaden, to accommodate it.

"It's huge," he confirms without remorse.

So what comes first, music or acting?

"You can't really compare the two," he says quick as a flash. "As an actor you
are a tool, you are a hammer which helps someone else get their dream vision.
As a music artist I write everything and I get to make them the way I want to.
The music is so personal."

He refers to the film career as his day job, the one that pays the bills.
Having said that, in Freakin' It he sings about the cheque for his Wild Wild
West hit single coming on a "flatbearer [low-loader] truck".

Whatever Will puts his mind to is automatically a success. After rejecting the
chance to go to the Massachusetts Institute Of Technology he turned his hand to
rap. In 1986 he released a single under the name of DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh
Prince, with his friend Jeff Townes, and went on to score a hit with Parents
Just Don't Understand.

His father, a fridge installer, and mother, a school administrator, certainly
didn't get it. "My dad thought I was a jackass," he says.

Will could easily be credited with taking rap into the mainstream but shows
some rare modesty when I put this to him.

"Aerosmith's Walk This Way with Run DMC was the record that solidified rap
music in the mainstream. Really I'm just reaping the benefits of being the next
guy to come along," he says. "They knocked down doors. We slipped in on their
coat tails."

His first taste of success led to heady days, with Will leading a lavish
lifestyle. "I got a little out of control," he admits. "I was 17, 18,
travelling around the world with more money than I have ever dreamed about.
Everything, my entire lifestyle was just out of control. Ten of your friends
living in your house playing pool until four in the morning, buying stuff. It's
a good thing I didn't do drugs because I can't imagine what my life would be
like now. I'd be on one of those VH1 shows which would go, 'And after the break
find out why Will checked into Betty Ford clinic'."

At one time in 1988 he owned six luxury cars. "My father said to me, 'Boy, what
you got six cars for. You've only got one arse'," he recalls. "Now I have two
which is more than sufficient."

Then of course the money ran out.

"When you lose all your money you start to focus a little bit," he says. "You
wake up one day and you can't afford any of the stuff you have. You start
re-evaluating your life when all the electricity gets turned off."

But Will wasn't lucked out for good. Soon after he landed the hit TV show The
Fresh Prince Of Bel Air and things really started to take off.

He had no acting experience but managed to transform the show into a hit
lasting six years on TV. Then came films such as Six Degrees Of Separation and
Independence Day, and the rest is history.

These days Will is a solid family man who invests his fortune wisely. He has a
good relationship with his first wife, actress Sheree Zampino, Trey's mother,
whom he divorced in 1995. He married Jada in 1997 and they had another son
Jaden together. Will revels in family life, when he can tear himself away from
work.

"I have always wanted this lifestyle," he insists. "Driving them to school and
helping with homework, I enjoy that. Trey loves baseball and likes to go to the
batting cages. He's very physical. So my job is to run him around until he is
tired and put him to sleep, and then it's time for Jada and I."

The couple have put having another child - hopefully this time a girl - top of
their agenda for the year 2000.

"I have got to have a baby girl," he enthuses. "The thing about boys is they
are fairly easy. You grab them by their shirt collar and tell them they have to
do what you say because you said so. It's animal rules with boys. It's, 'Can
you beat me in a fight'. The answer is no you can't and they understand that.
With girls it is different."

But joking aside even perfect Will has found bringing his kids up tough. He
found himself in tears after smacking Trey after a bout of naughtiness.

"I had to give Trey a spanking for the first time," he recalls. "He cried and I
was in the other room crying. It was the worst. My wife was standing between
the two rooms trying to figure out what to do. Which one should she go to
first."