Ale

Thanks Ashley, Will is a little bigger today. :1-say-yes:

Survival of the fittest Trainer explains how Will Smith became the stuff of Legend Welcome to Earth. Population: Will Smith His character, Robert Neville, is the last man on Earth in I Am Legend, and the future of mankind depends on his ability to outlast relentless mutant zombies. Fitness is key to Neville's survival and, Will Smith believes, it's key to excelling in our lives. The workout scene that has audiences gasping is Smith performing impressive behind-the-head pull-ups. "He does four sets of 50 reps with less than two-minute rests between sets and he imagines he's got the weight of the world on his shoulders," explains Darrell Foster, an 18-year boxing and fitness coach for former champ Sugar Ray Leonard, a martial arts expert and Smith's long-time trainer (omegabodies.com). The hypertonic look Smith achieved, wasn't for eye-candy, but a result of the high level of conditioning the character needed to defeat the "infected." "Will's character has to workout to be prepared because he's under attack", Foster explains. "Neville never knows how far he'll have to run or for how long and his life depends on it. Part of the character's motivation is: 'I have to survive'. "He works out and runs during the day to stay healthy and quick because at night he combats monsters." Smith was in his maintenance phase prior to principal photography, so Foster put Smith through his version of a survivalist camp: Running eight kilometres daily combined with a hypertrophy strength-training program on a high-protein/low-carb diet. A high-protein diet is a muscle-maker, but low carbing is an elocution breaker. "In filming you run into a problem when cutting carbs: Monologues," Foster says, noting the lack of carbohydrates means low energy and focus. TRICK THE CAMERA "That's why it's for a short time period, for three weeks only -- it's not a lifestyle. It's not healthy to put on 20 pounds, drop 20 pounds and then put back 30 pounds (as Smith has done for his next film, Hancock, which accounts for why he looks more filled out on the cover of the December issue of Men's Vogue), but sometimes you have to trick the camera." CGI was used to dramatize the "infected," but not modify Smith's body. Producers considered it when challenged to add weight to his face as a time marker for flashback sequences. Smith declined faking it. To achieve that look, a few days prior to shooting Foster would wake Smith at 3 a.m. "I'd feed him sushi with soy sauce and pizza. These foods make a body retain water, puffing it up so Will could appear ten pounds heavier in a day," Foster says. (Memo to you: Avoid these high sodium foods days ahead of a special occasion to look leaner). Once those shots were in the can, Foster tweaked Smith's diet. "The next day we drain the water out." Healthy natural ways to get leaner fast include meals with asparagus (the vegetable extracts water from the body to reveal muscle definition) and dandelion tea, a popular diuretic. These tricks got the 6'2", 184-pound actor's body fat down to 6%. "Will lost 30 pounds, but looks even bigger now," Foster says. I Am Legend explores if Robert Neville can he keep his sanity, courage and hope while trying to remain healthy and alive. Dieters understand the conundrum all too well. But, Smith is convinced the treadmill is the place where everyone can excel in life. Smartly, Smith combines learning with exercise, listening to A Hero's Journey or subjects on filmmaking while running. "If you've got books on tape, you can knock out 10 miles," Foster says. "Expanding your mind sends a signal to get on board and you want to get to the next chapter!" WORDS OF WISDOM Will Smith told Reader's Digest: "In one of my songs, I write, 'The key to life is on a treadmill. I'll just watch and learn while your chest burns. Because if you say you are going to run three miles and you only run two, I don't ever have to worry about losing something to you.' I started about five years ago. Running introduces you to your worst enemy, to that person who tells you, 'Ooh, our ankles hurt and we should stop. Why do we need to run five miles? Let us run three miles.' That is the same person who says to the man, 'Hey, your wife will never find out if you sleep with her,' and the same person who tells the 16-year-old, 'You are not gonna be cool if you do not smoke it.' If you start giving in to that person, you will never get to your goals." http://www.edmontonsun.com/Lifestyle/Healt...716686-sun.html

What's riskier for Smith: vampires or a one-man show? By Chris Lee Los Angeles Times Will Smith stars in "I Am Legend," opening Dec. 14. Illustrates FILM-LEGEND-SMITH (category e) by Chris Lee © 2007, Los Angeles Times. Moved Thursday, Nov. 8, 2007. (MUST CREDIT: Los Angeles Times photo by Genaro Molina.) HOLLYWOOD — Last year, they shut down New York for a few hours so Will Smith could be alone. It came neither easy nor cheap, snarling traffic and making more than a few people very angry in the process. But one busy Monday morning in October 2006, a production crew for the sci-fi drama "I Am Legend" cordoned off several blocks of Manhattan's Fifth Avenue and completely depopulated the area so the Oscar-nominated star of "Ali" could be filmed walking cautiously down one of the city's most traveled arteries in total solitude — his surroundings utterly and perfectly still. "That was aggressive. I don't think anyone's going to be able to do that in New York again any time soon," Smith said, breaking into a wide grin at the memory. "People were not happy. That's the most middle fingers I've ever gotten in my career." Nobody said it was going to be easy portraying the last man on Earth — a military scientist who survives a biological pandemic that apparently has turned the rest of humanity into night-crawling vampire zombies. Over the previous 12 years, a panoply of A-list actors had been attached to the role — notably Tom Cruise, Michael Douglas and Arnold Schwarzenegger — but until Smith came along, none could shepherd the high-concept project into production. Sticking Point A: The "Legend" protagonist is an island unto himself, spending his daylight hours trying to concoct an antidote to vampirism and retiring to his locked and loaded Greenwich Village brownstone at night when the freaks come out for blood. That means, for much of the movie — even when backdropped by quintessential Big Apple locations including Washington Square Park and Times Square — he's the last man on-screen. Smith has bumped up against the apocalypse in movies before, battling legions of murderous androids in "I, Robot" and intercepting marauding aliens set on conquering Earth in "Independence Day." "Legend," however, represents a risk for one of the biggest movie stars in the world. Reportedly budgeted at more than $100 million, it's a big-budget one-man show in which he's seen emoting opposite a dog, various mannequins and computer-generated monsters. Think "Castaway" meets "28 Days Later." "It is an extremely delicate balancing act — not going too far one way or another," Smith said, dripping with movie blood now on the set of his postmodern superhero flick "Hancock." "The second you have one too many explosions, one music cue a little too high, you destroy it. You lose it all." Since combining forces with screenwriter-producer Akiva Goldsman and director Francis Lawrence on the project in 2005, the stated ambition with "Legend" has been to cross-pollinate summer blockbuster-style eye candy with the gravitas of an awards-season Serious Film. But "I Am Legend," which opens Friday, arrives as the third big-screen iteration of celebrated "Twilight Zone" writer Richard Matheson's popular 1954 science-fiction novella of the same name. "The Last Man on Earth," a low-budget version shot in Italy and starring Vincent Price, was released in 1964. In 1971, the material was reworked again in the service of "The Omega Man," which pitted Charlton Heston against a clan of psychotic albino mutants. Matheson's book also has been cited as a primary influence on precisely the sort of genre movie "Legend" wants nothing to do with: George Romero's 1968 zombie masterwork, "Night of the Living Dead." Since 1997, a who's who of big-deal action and genre directors has flirted with remaking "Legend," among them: Ridley Scott, Guillermo Del Toro and Michael Bay, who was set to begin filming "Legend" with Smith in 2002 when the project was pre-empted by British director Danny Boyle's cerebral horror fantasy "28 Days Later." That film depicts a similarly disease-ravaged, post-apocalyptic wasteland — replete with depopulated London locales — in which a trio of heroes who likewise may be the last people on Earth battle flesh-eating zombies for survival. The project's colorful development history left Lawrence — director of "Constantine," the hit 2005 comic-book adaptation starring Keanu Reeves as a supernatural detective who battles Satan — feeling somewhat apprehensive about mounting his own adaptation of "Legend." "There's been some big talent attached," said Lawrence, on break from final editing of the film. "So people in the business are waiting to see it, wondering how (the other directors) would have stacked up. In terms of mass audience, I'm not daunted at all. But people in the business are daunting to me." For Smith, who says he has felt compelled to have his movies "mean something" since topping the box-office chart with his inspirational father-son drama "The Pursuit of Happyness" last year, the movie was a splashy way to pose certain big existential questions. "The sneaky secret is that this one is Job," Smith said of his character in "Legend." "You take a man, take everything from him, and can he find a reason to continue? Can he find the hope or desire to excel and advance in life? Or does the death of everything around him create imminent death for himself?" The actor paused for a moment, then added, "The question is, can you do that with a wonderful character piece wrapped in blockbuster clothes?" http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/movi...illsmith10.html

Will Smith and company destroy humanity and shut down New York City for I Am Legend http://www.scifi.com/sfw/interviews/sfw17559.html

Mika - Love Today :wickedwisdom:

That's awesome! :yeah: :wiggle: :gettinjiggywitit:

BEVERLY HILLS -- There are all kinds of monsters. In Hollywood, they're called child actors. Yet that hasn't deterred Will Smith and wife Jada Pinkett Smith from casting their kids in his movies. In I Am Legend, 7-year-old Willow plays Smith's daughter in flashbacks. Last year, 9-year-old Jaden portrayed his son in The Pursuit of Happyness. Smith says he and Pinkett Smith often debate the question of, "Nature versus nurture. Is it because two actors went to Mexico and drank some tequila and made a baby? Does that make the baby an actor?" So how do his children rate? Laughs Smith, "Jaden is Johnny Depp. He just wants to do good work. He doesn't care what money he gets. He doesn't care if people see it or don't see it. He just loves acting. He just wants to make good movies. And Willow's Paris Hilton. Willow wants to be on TV. We are managing both of those in our household." As well as trying to keep them grounded. "For us, travelling is hugely important -- for our kids to see other things and experience other things," he says, citing trips to South Africa and Italy as examples. "We live in la-la land out here. Los Angeles and New York are cut off from the rest of the country and the rest of the world." http://winnipegsun.com/Entertainment/Movie...715459-sun.html

Smith plays lone survivor in New York City in sci-fi thriller What actor could resist playing the last man in New York City? Will Smith was first intrigued with “I Am Legend” more than 12 years ago when it was to be a Michael Bay feature - now he stars as Robert Neville, the lone survivor of a global viral catastrophe, in this latest adaptation of Richard Matheson’s enduring cautionary tale. Smith focused on aspects beyond the premise of a man being hunted by mutants and going mad from loneliness. “I am really connecting to the Joseph Campbell idea of the collective unconscious. There are things that we all dream, things beyond language. There are things that each one of us has thought, that connect to life, death and sex. To me, this is one of those concepts,” the 39-year-old actor said. Calling it a “primal idea” that “a 4-year-old can understand,” Smith was asked how significant it is that the last man alive is African-American. “First and last, baby,” Smith said laughing, referring to mankind’s African origins. “It’s funny, it’s almost a metaphysical idea for me. I rarely think about that - until someone brings it up. For me, at least, the acknowledgement of those kinds of ideas puts a weird boundary on my thoughts. I can’t allow myself to be a part of it because it sort of makes me think smaller.” In last year’s “The Pursuit of Happyness [trailer],” Smith co-starred with son Jaden. Now he shares the screen with daughter Willow, 7. “You kind of don’t work with Willow, you work for Willow,” he joked. “She just wants it; she has a drive, an energy.” Smith recalled shooting in New York on a wintry below-zero night. “Willow is out there and she’s cold, getting a little irritable. She looks at me and says, ‘Daddy, I don’t care how low it goes, I’m going to finish.’ I was like, ‘That’s good, baby, because Daddy is leaving if it go any lower.’ ” http://news.bostonherald.com/entertainment...ticleid=1049609

Will Smith on 'I Am Legend' Will has a way all his own at the box office By KEVIN WILLIAMSON -- Sun Media BEVERLY HILLS -- Filming his post-apocalyptic thriller I Am Legend, Will Smith got used to being saluted by New Yorkers. "Percentage-wise, it's the most amount of middle fingers I've ever received in my career," Smith says. And this is the guy who made Wild, Wild West. Why the hostility? Because to create a near-future Manhattan that has been left desolate and derelict by a lethal man-made virus, the production shut down streets and tangled traffic for more than 40 days. "We shut down six blocks of Fifth Avenue on a Monday morning -- that was probably poor planning," Smith says during a recent media conference to promote the movie, which opens Friday. "It's chilling to walk down the middle of Fifth Avenue ... At two o'clock in the morning on a Sunday, you can't walk down the middle of Fifth Avenue." For the 39-year-old superstar extraordinaire, the less-than-jiggy public reception admittedly took some getting used to. "I'm used to people liking me." And, of course, they do and still will, at least if their morning commute isn't disrupted. In an era when stars are more vilified than respected, more victimized than beloved, Smith is a cheerful, impervious anomaly. As a box-office commodity, he is arguably peerless -- surpassing the likes of Cruise, Pitt and Hanks and able to attract audiences to even such middling entertainments as I, Robot and Hitch. Nor is his clout tethered strictly to extravaganzas in which he saves the world or gets the girl. Last year's The Pursuit of Happyness, a drama about a homeless father, may have predictably won Smith accolades, but it also earned $163 million in North America alone. Altogether, his movies have amassed more than $4 billion -- awfully impressive for someone who began his career as a rapper and sitcom star. Even now, Smith can pinpoint the day he graduated from fresh prince to Hollywood imperator. "July 6, 1996 -- the Monday after Independence Day opened," he says. "That morning when the box office came out (it was) 'Good morning, Mr. Smith.' It was so bizarre I specifically remember that." And in the decade since, Smith has prevailed against the currents of celebrity self-destruction. He may be a superstar, but he has never been a spectacle. Nor has he let his private life degenerate into a gossip sideshow. Moreover, professionally, he has never acquired a reputation for being difficult or demanding. "It's sort of a cliche," Legend director Francis Lawrence says, "but Will's a pretty great guy to work with. He's really professional. He's as positive as can be. He's really smart. He's good with story. He's a great actor. He's creative, inventive -- you can't ask for a better person to work with." And it's doubtful without Smith's clout, I Am Legend would've been made at all. The property, based on the Richard Matheson 1954 novel that had already been adapted into the 1971 thriller Omega Man with Charlton Heston, had languished for years in development. A decade earlier, Arnold Schwarzenegger was going to star in it for Alien director Ridley Scott before a ballooning budget scuttled it. A succession of filmmakers and actors followed until Smith came aboard with his Bad Boys director Michael Bay. Eventually Bay bailed to direct The Island and Transformers, but Smith continued to circle, fascinated by the story's protagonist Robert Neville, the last non-zombie on earth. Finally, two years ago, Lawrence, hot off the Keanu Reeves occult thriller Constantine, signed to direct. Given that Smith has his pick of projects, why did he feel such an affinity for such a grim tale? "With movies, I am really connecting to the (author) Joseph Campbell's idea of the collective unconscious ... That separation from people, that being ripped away from people, coupled with the unknown of the dark and how we would fare in that realm, it's a primal idea. "I loved this concept because it connects to ideas a 4-year-old can understand." With Smith and Lawrence signed, production commenced last year in New York. And while the post-apocalyptic drama has become a genre unto itself with its own rules, expectations and landscapes, Lawrence believes the world they created resembles what would happen following a real-life catastrophe. "We asked scientists and ecologists what would happen to a city once the population disappeared. And the truth is, nature would start to reclaim it ... It would probably become a more beautiful place." With I Am Legend out Friday, Smith will next be seen as an alcoholic superhero in Hancock, out next summer. In March, before the probable Screen Actor's Guild strike hits in June, he'll shoot the drama Seven Pounds. Off-screen, he is plotting a return to his hip-hop roots -- hitting the road next summer with his former cohort, DJ Jazzy Jeff. "Jeff and I perform a couple times a year, but we're going to go big in July." For most of Hollywood, however, he'll likely remain Mr. Smith. http://jam.canoe.ca/Movies/Artists/S/Smith...714939-sun.html

Will Smith is in charge in 'I Am Legend' By J.R. GRIFFIN Saturday, December 8th 2007, 4:00 AM Smith's films have racked up $4 billion at the box office. Will Smith has saved the planet from an alien invasion (a couple of times now), untangled government conspiracies and even entered the ring as Muhammad Ali battling George Foreman. But now the superstar Oscar nominee takes on his most formidable foe yet. No, it's not the infected, flesh-devouring creepoids looking to tear him to shreds as the last man on Earth in "I Am Legend," opening Friday. It's the usual Hollywood blockbuster conventions that Smith wants to pummel. It started with a conversation he had with screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, whom he met at the 2002 Oscars, where Goldsman won for his script for "A Beautiful Mind" and Smith was up for Best Actor for his role in "Ali." "We posed the question: Why do the big movies come out in summer and the good movies come out in fall?" says Smith, 39, in smart gray slacks and a casual white V-neck that doesn't hide his somewhat unexpectedly buff physique. "Why can't you marry the two, even if it breaks the steadfast, tried-and-true pylons of Hollywood?" On Dec. 31, Smith & Jada Pinckett Smith (with son Jaden) will be married 10 years. The two are ramming those pylons with "Legend," an adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel. As a scientist immune to a human-killing virus that's left cities in ruins and some animals unharmed, Smith holds a majority of the movie solo, playing off only a canine co-star as he riffs with mannequins and carries on an inner dialogue filled with humor, desperation and the terror of a guy losing his grip. One also only needs to check the source material (or the previous big-screen versions of it, 1964's "The Last Man on Earth" or 1971's "The Omega Man") to know "Legend" won't go down as the feel-good movie of the season. Onscreen heat between Smith and Eva Mendes helped 2005's 'Hitch' earn $175 million at the box office. "It's terrifying, because when I look at 'I Am Legend,' I know there are things about the movie that I could change to guarantee a certain [box-office] number," says Smith. "I have a pretty solid grip on how to make a big movie. But because I do, the last thing I want to do is follow it. "Now, I want to know: Can I create something? Can I break genre in a way that actually creates genre? That's a scary leap to make." If anyone can take that leap, it's Smith. While still the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" on TV in 1990, Smith sat down with his now longtime producing partner, James Lassiter, and literally studied the top 10 top-grossing movies of all time as the first step in becoming the biggest movie star in the world. He's arguably accomplished it, racking up some $4 billion at the worldwide box office as he balanced big-ticket event flicks like "Independence Day" and "Men in Black" with comedies like "Hitch," dramas like "Ali" and last year's heartfelt "The Pursuit of Happyness," which earned him his second Oscar nomination, co-starring with his son, Jaden. His hybrid hero/everyman charm has allowed Smith to write his own good-natured, nice-guy blueprint for Hollywood success. "The plan was to jump as far away as possible from what people know you to do, and then they will believe everything in between," says Smith. It's worked so well for him, Smith recently offered some road-less-traveled advice to his "Hitch" co-star, funnyman Kevin James. "I told Kevin, 'Play a serial killer. ... Show how far you can go out of what you've already mastered." While jumping genres, Smith has cultivated the kind of connection with moviegoers that makes his being the world's last human in "Legend" not a bad deal at all. In real life, his laid-back and famously stable family life with his wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith - this New Year's Eve, they'll be married 10 years - and their three children perfectly complements his driven professionalism. (Smith also has a 15-year-old son from a previous marriage.) And he isn't slowing down. In fact, he says he feels as if he's just getting started: He has next year's Fourth of July - the movie date he owns - locked down with "Hancock," in which he'll play a down-and-out superhero in need of PR. Then he'll clash with Nicolas Cage in the comedy "Time Share" and will reunite with his "Ali" director Michael Mann on "Empire." But movies like "Happyness," "I Am Legend" and the upcoming "Seven Pounds," in which he plays a suicidal man who falls in love, hold a special place in his heart. "Those films show where I am in my life right now as an artist, what I'm thinking about," he says. "For example, examining how humans deal with trauma is a big part of those movies. That is something new to me, infusing where I am into the DNA of the material. "I feel like Michael Jordan in the '80s. I am artistically in my prime. I feel like the next five to 10 years will be the best work that I've ever done." http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/m...end.html?page=0

More pix: I am Legend Japan Premiere: http://www.filmicafe.com/photo_event_image...mp;event_id=325

Hollywood superstar Will Smith has revealed he has his eye on the greatest role of his life – to become President of the United States. And the 39-year-old Men In Black star, regarded as one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, said his priorities in office would be to reform American healthcare and tackle homelessness. In an interview with The Mail on Sunday's Live magazine to promote his latest film I Am Legend – where he plays a survivor of a man-made plague – he said: 'I'm going to be President of the United States. "I always wanted to be the first black president but Barack Obama (a black presidential hopeful) stole my idea. That's OK with me. Barack can go first and then I'll take my turn." The actor, a Democrat, revealed he had already decided which social issues he would address if he came to power. He said: "Once I'm in, I'll start changing a few things that urgently need changing. "The basis of human sanity is physical survival, right? So I'd start with universal healthcare and shelter. I can't see that happening under Bush. Too many bad things have happened under his presidency. "I don't believe he is an evil man, I just think he has an unevolved perspective. It's a good thing he's served his time. Now it's time for Barack Obama." Smith is a big supporter of Obama's bid for the Democrat nomination for the 2008 election. He has reportedly contributed to the campaign and made a video with other Hollywood stars supporting it. The actor has also expressed a desire to play the Illinois senator in a film of his life. Smith, a friend of David Beckham, has three children – Trey, from his first marriage to Sheree Zampino, and two more from his 1997 marriage to actress Jada Pinkett. The couple's eldest Jaden, nine, co-starred with him in The Pursuit Of Happyness for which Smith was nominated for an Oscar for best actor. He was also nominated for the 2001 film Ali and has sold millions of records as a rap and hip-hop artist. He is thought to be worth £250million. http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/showbiz/arti...ates/article.do

Will Smith & Screaming Girls in Japan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHOS4MQ4LVw

I AM LEGEND - Interview w/ Alice Braga http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSbwK5_sJjk

Mr. Smith Goes to New York By A.C. FERRANTE As a celebrity, Will Smith is used to getting high-fives. But while in New York City filming I AM LEGEND (the third film version of Richard Matheson’s classic horror novella), he found himself on the receiving end of a completely different kind of gesture from the public. “I’m used to people liking me, but I would say percentage-wise, it’s the most amount of middle fingers I’ve received,” Smith says with a smile. “We shut down six blocks of 5th Avenue on a Monday morning. That was probably poor logistics and poor planning.” While Manhattan residents were understandably frustrated by the accompanying traffic delays, the end result of this shutdown is some of the most eerie scenes of an deserted Big Apple ever committed to film, which Smith says is part of the magic of the movie (opening December 14 from Warner Bros.). “You realize you’ve never seen an empty shot of New York,” he notes, “and when we were doing it, it was chilling to walk down the middle of 5th Avenue. There’s never an opportunity to do that, even at 2 a.m. on Sunday morning. It created such a creepy energy, and there are [scenes involving] iconic buildings as well. There’s a shot of the UN. There’s Broadway. It puts such an eerie, icky kind of feeling in the movie, when you see those shots. Logistically, it was a nightmare, but it absolutely created something you couldn’t do with greenscreen or shooting another city for New York.” First published in 1954, Matheson’s story was previously filmed with Vincent Price as 1964’s THE LAST MAN ON EARTH and with Charlton Heston as 1971’s THE OMEGA MAN. The new movie, directed by Francis (CONSTANTINE) Lawrence, casts Smith as Robert Neville, the last man alive after a virus has wiped out almost all of the world’s population. Those who haven’t succumbed have evolved into nocturnal, vampire-like creatures who come out at night to feed and hide underground during the day. Neville barricades himself in a Washington Square apartment between sundown and sunup as he tries to find a cure for the plague—but once he makes his presence known, he soon becomes the hunted. “[Doing this role] was such an exploration of myself,” Smith says, “because what happened was, I got myself in a situation where I didn’t have people to create the stimulus for me to respond to. So I started creating the stimulus and response and there was a connection with myself, which my mind started to drift to in those situations. I learned things about myself that I could have never even imagined. To prepare for that, we sat with former POWs and people who sat in solitary confinement. That was the framework. First thing is a schedule: You will not survive in solitary if you don’t schedule everything. I talked to Geronimo Pratt of the Black Panthers, who was in solitary for over three months. [He told me] you plan things like cleaning your nails. You will take two hours, and you have to, because it’s on the schedule. He said he spent about six weeks where he trained roaches to bring him food. The idea of where your mind goes to defend yourself… Whether he did train the roaches or not, he needed that to survive either way, so if you put that on camera—it’s genius. “For me, that was the key thing—to get into the mental space where whatever the truth was for Robert Neville, it didn’t matter,” the actor continues. “The only thing that mattered was what he saw and what he believed. It was such an exploration of what happens to the human mind as it’s trying to survive, and I’m a better actor for having to create both sides of scenes with no dialogue.” Warner Bros. has tried to launch an updated film of I AM LEGEND for years, with directors as varied as Ridley Scott and Michael Bay attached to direct and, at one point, Arnold Schwarzenegger set to star. Smith, who has hung onto the prospect of playing Neville since the time Bay was first attached, was always intrigued by this character who spends the movie isolated and alone, with only his dog Sam as his companion. “I was really connecting to the Joseph Campbell idea of the collective unconscious,” he says. “There are things we all dream, things each one of us thinks about that connect to life, death, sex—things that are beyond language, and this is one of those concepts. You’ve been on the freeway many times and wished everyone was dead. There have been times you wished you were by yourself, and didn’t need any of these assholes and just wanted to be alone. That separation from people, being ripped away from everyone and being connected with the dark—that’s a primal idea. I couldn’t always articulate it like that, but I loved this concept, because it connects to an idea that a 4-year-old could understand.” With nobody but a few mannequins to “communicate” with, Neville has to form a very tight bond with his dog Sam (played by a German shepherd named Abbey)—an attachment that Smith found himself sharing. “When I was 9 years old, I had a white golden retriever named Trixie that got hit by a car,” recalls Smith, who refused to own an animal since then because he didn’t want to become “emotionally connected to a dog anymore. Then [trainer] Steve [berens] brought that damn Abbey to set,” Smith laughs. “You talk about a smart dog—it got to the point where Abbey would be playing and hear ‘Rolling,’ and she’d run over and hit her mark. She would know I wasn’t doing my lines right if I got lost in a scene. It was the first time I connected and allowed myself to bond with a dog since that experience. “I said, ‘Steve, Abbey has to live with me,’ and he said, ‘She’s how I make my living,’ ” Smith continues. “I said, ‘Tell me what you need—a house in the hills.’ She was so smart and fun and warm that I experienced the pain again. He said, ‘I’ll bring her over every weekend, Will, but she has to work.’ She was great. Abbey is way on another plane, connecting to what your energy is, what your feelings are. It’s beautiful.” With or without a canine companion, Smith says he’s not sure he would be cool, calm and collected if found himself in a situation similar to Neville’s, but admits, “That’s what’s interesting about playing characters like this, because you get to explore and wonder how would you react. To me, [starring in] ALI was the greatest time of asking myself that question. When Ali didn’t step forward because they wouldn’t call him Muhammad Ali, he knew he was going to jail, he knew what the situation would be, but he couldn’t do it. I remember reading this, thinking, ‘What would I do?’ I just don’t know if I would be enough man, to give up everything I have right now, the way Ali did. “I thought about Robert Neville,” he continues. “What is there to live for, to hope for; to wake up every day to try to restore something that is good and gone. I like to believe I would put my chest up and stand forward and march on and continue to fight for the future of humanity. It’s a tough question. I don’t know. There’s a part of me that wants to be tested to know what you would do…but you don’t really want to be tested. That’s the space I’ve lived in with quite a few of the roles I’ve played.” http://www.fangoria.com/fearful_feature.php?id=5590

BY JOHN ANDERSON | Special to Newsday December 9, 2007 As someone once said, change is inevitable, except from vending machines. In 1959, Harry Belafonte starred in "The World, the Flesh and the Devil," playing a miner who emerges from a cave-in to find himself the last human on Earth - save for a comely blonde, played by the Swedish actress Inger Stevens. The question? Would Eisenhower America accept the outrageous suggestion that a "Day-O"-singing black civil-rights icon and a white woman would be left to perpetuate the human race? That movie is virtually unknown today. It is now 2007, and on Friday, Will Smith will be the last human on Earth in "I Am Legend," the post-apocalyptic Warner Bros. thriller based on the celebrated 1953 novel by Richard Matheson ("The Twilight Zone," "Night Gallery"). The question? Can Bush America continue to accept Will Smith as its leading box-office star, perpetuating a collaboration with the film industry that has resulted in a career total of some $4.4 billion in worldwide box-office receipts? Hollywood likes change. At least the kind you get from a vending machine. But change - in the sense of transformation, metamorphosis, difference - isn't something audiences particularly spark to. They like questions with reliable answers, and there's no one more reliable than Mr. Smith. He is simply the top male American movie star, and a global phenomenon: Some of his films have done better overseas - "Bad Boys," for instance. And while it's safe to say race is always an issue in America, Smith - the biggest thing ever to come out of rap, lest people forget - isn't identified exclusively, or particularly, as anything. He's just huge. His popularity is based on an amiable persona that the actor has parlayed into various manifestations: confidence man ("Six Degrees of Separation"); young hipster ("The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air"); older hipster ("Men in Black"), authoritarian hipster ("Bad Boys"), hip savior of the world ("Independence Day"), wise-cracking lawman ("Wild Wild West"), wise-cracking aquatic ("Shark Tale"), desperate parent ("The Pursuit of Happyness"). And he does it all via the same technique used by every major star in the history of Hollywood: by making it seem like he's playing himself. "Smith gives a performance of mind-boggling range," critic Michael Sragow wrote of "Happyness." Smith himself seems less impresssed: "I've never viewed myself as particularly talented. I've viewed myself as ... slightly above average in talent," he told "60 Minutes" in an interview that aired last Sunday. "Where I excel is with a ridiculous, sickening work ethic. While the other guy's sleeping, I'm working. While the other guy's eating, I'm working." Michael Tadross, executive producer of "I Am Legend" backs that up. "One night during shooting it was cold out, freezing, and I told him 'Will, please, go back to your trailer,'" Tadross said. "He told me, 'No, no, no. This is what I do. And I get paid a lot of money to do it. If everybody else is out here, then I'm out here, too." It got worse during what Tadross called the "evacuation scene." "It was freezing, again," Tadross said. "Three-thirty in the morning, productivity was at an all-time low. Will picks up the microphone, starts laughing and saying, 'I'm going to Miami!!!' and it got everybody up. We got the scenes done. Who else is like that?" "I Am Legend," directed by Francis Lawrence and scripted by Akiva Goldsman, is a particular challenge for the star: Smith has to dominate the movie in a way neither he, nor any star since Tom Hanks in "Cast Away," has dominated a movie. He's the last man in New York (where the streets were shut one busy Monday morning so that Smith and a dog could roam alone. Alone, that is, except for hideous slavering vampires, from whom he has to sequester himself at night.) A 12-year-effort The Matheson novel has seen the screen twice before, in addition to being the oft-cited inspiration for George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" (1968). "The Last Man on Earth" (1964) was an Italian production starring Vincent Price, and was followed only a few years later by the considerably more upscale "The Omega Man" (1971) with Charlton Heston, another star who could virtually carry a movie on his chariot without the encumbrances of co-stars. It took a 12-year effort to get Matheson's story on screen again, with such directors as Ridley Scott, Guillermo del Toro and Michael Bay connected to the project at various points. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Douglas and Tom Cruise were mentioned as possible leads. That it should be Smith who has brought the film to realization says a great deal about his star power, and perceived marketability. Smith's commercial charms no doubt convinced Warner Bros. to go forward with the costly production. With the dimming of Tom Hanks (age), Tom Cruise (craziness) and Mel Gibson (both), the 39-year-old Phildelphia-born Smith has emerged as the iron man of the weekend box office, the guy able to consistently bring in $30 million in a movie's first weekend of release and who can, and has, helped a number of those movies cross the $150-million mark domestically. These include his last three film releases - "Happyness," "Hitch" and "Shark Tale." The sci-fi feature "I, Robot" made "only" $144 million, but others have leapt a considerably higher bar ("Independence Day," $306 million; "Men in Black," $250 million). He's also been hot in every genre, including the downbeat "Happyness," which grossed an astronomical $305 million worldwide, according to the tracking Web site boxoffice mojo.com. Smith is now No. 1, followed by Johnny Depp and Ben Stiller. Golden grail No one has been more careful and calculating than Smith in creating his own niche, if you can even call it that. As he has conceded in interviews, his career trajectory has been a meticulously plotted course aimed at the lowest common denominator of the American marketplace. No one has accused Smith of repeating himself, but when you consider how many of his films have been end-of-the-world, special-effects extravaganzas (such as "Independence Day," "Men in Black," "I Am Legend") or action movies ("Bad Boys," "Wild Wild West"), you can't imagine he's planning to do "Othello" anytime soon. His rare flops have each marked an understandable detour from formula - it would have been madness for him to turn down the chance to play the title character in "Ali," for instance, or to have passed on a chance to work with Robert Redford ("The Legend of Bagger Vance"), even if biopics and golf films aren't really anybody's strong suit. But "Happyness" couldn't have been predicted - the story of a down-and-out single father running around New York with a medical scanner in his suitcase doesn't sound like a good time. But the movie gave people Smith. And they turned out in droves. You can't quite see him as a villain. Not yet anyway, though with two best actor Oscar nominations on his resume ("Happyness" and "Ali"), the ordinary process of career and ego and adulation says he'll eventually want the validation that comes with much-historied statuettes. He won't be happy just making $25 million a picture, or being the highest-paid black actor - or, simply, actor - of all time. He'll want the gold. When he wins, as he certainly will, the prediction here is that it will be accepted, graciously, and with an impromptu rendition of "Just the Two of Us."At first Warner Bros. reportedly passed on filming in New York because of costs and logistics; then "I Am Legend's" production team got the city to approve closing the Grand Central viaduct, several blocks of Fifth Avenue and Washington Square Park (nights and weekends between September 2006 and April 2007). The studio then spent an estimated $5 million for a six-night shoot on the Brooklyn Bridge, an effort that required more than a dozen government-agency approvals, a crew of 250, and 1,000 extras. The Fresh Prince of Hollywood Here are Will Smith's most notable films, kicked off by his small-screen success on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" from 1990-96. The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) Hitch (2005) Shark Tale (2004) I, Robot (2004) Bad Boys II (2003) Men in Black II (2002) Ali (2001) The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) Wild Wild West (1999) Enemy of the State (1998) Men in Black (1997) Independence Day (1996) Bad Boys (1995) Six Degrees of Separation (1993) Made in America (1993) http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/movie...46.story?page=1

At 39, actor Will Smith has 14 movies to his credit and a new horror-drama called I Am Legend. He feels anything is possible, including becoming the first black American President, as long as Barack Obama doesn't beat him to it "The whole of the universe is contained in a single grain of sand," says Will Smith, quoting from his favourite book, Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, while maintaining characteristically intense eye contact. "I've taken that to mean that you can understand everything about the universe from any one thing that you master. Cinema is my grain of sand. That's how I want to deliver messages to the world and I'm not willing to take even a centimetre of that focus away. The next five years will mark the peak of my career. I can't let anything get in the way of that." It's a rare earnest moment in a babbling stream of good humour that encompasses presidential ambitions, sporting braggadocio, toilet humour, David Beckham anecdotes and self-mockery, but it goes to the heart of Smith's character. The truth is that, without him ever appearing ruthless, nothing has ever stood in the way of Will Smith. 'Barack Obama can go first, then it's my turn as President,' says Will Smith He's portrayed his multi-faceted career as a series of lucky accidents, claiming that he has little clue about what he's doing. But nobody in Hollywood has ever planned more carefully, nor worked so determinedly to stay ahead of the game. All this is vividly apparent the moment he strides into a hotel room in the picturesque and soaringly wealthy LA suburb of Westlake Village. At 6ft 2in, he's tall but not imposingly so, his physique noticeably slimmed from the 151/2 stone he weighed to play Muhammad Ali in 2001. He's slightly greying at the temples but Smith's fresh-faced handsomeness is intact, lent an irresistibly comic touch by those famously cartoonish stick-out ears. "Hey man," he grins wildly, gripping my hand with vice-like conviction. I ask him where he'd like to sit and he quips, "I'll sit wherever you're not sitting, otherwise we'll both be uncomfortable." Then, throwing himself on to the chair opposite to mine, he manages to bump his head against a lamp stand, reacting with a loud peal of goofy laughter. He's dressed for golf and explains that, following our mid-morning interview, he's heading off to the nearest course for one of his regular games with close friend Tiger Woods. I venture that maybe Tiger will have a rare off-day, and the 19th hole bragging rights will surely belong to him. "Yup, happens all the time," he deadpans. "When Tiger's off form, I'm all over him. The thing with Tiger is you can't let him know you're competing in your mind. The second that he knows you're competing with him, he shifts up another gear. Your best chance, in fact your only chance, is to pretend that you don't care, that you're out there purely for the fun of it. Even then, you have no chance at all." In all seriousness, Smith has never really looked threatened by anyone. In the past, he has been heard complaining that the only scripts he gets offered are those that Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks have turned down, but it's always been obvious that he's joking. Rather, he gives the impression of being maniacally competitive with himself – and that seems to be reaching a crescendo as he approaches middle age. Smith has been a major box-office attraction for two decades now, ever since making the leap from TV's The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air to cinema's lofty reaches. He's since proved himself bankable in every movie genre, whether it's action-comedy (Men In Black), sci-fi (Independence Day/I, Robot), romantic comedy (Hitch), biography (Ali/The Pursuit Of Happyness), fast-paced thrillers (Enemy Of The State) or straight drama (Six Degrees Of Separation). His latest movie is horror-drama I Am Legend, in which he stars as a scientist who believes himself to be the only survivor of a man-made plague that has wiped out most of humanity and turned the rest into vampiric mutants. To date, his 14 movies have earned £2 billion worldwide and ten of those movies have made more than £50 million in the US alone. He now earns a reported £15 million per movie plus a handsome share of the profits. His personal fortune has been conservatively estimated at £250 million. On the strength of all this, US magazine Newsweek recently voted him the most powerful man in Hollywood. But that's not likely to satisfy him for long. Smith tells me he's now arrived at a crucial fork in the road, where past achievements mean next to nothing when measured against the ambitions still needing to be fulfilled. "I'm 39 in a couple of weeks," he says. I gently correct him, pointing out that he'll turn 39 only two days after this interview. "Thanks for reminding me," he laughs. It's significant, because a decade ago he told an American magazine he'd like to run for President, "maybe in my early forties." People have been asking him ever since if he was serious, and in today's interview he'll drop the strongest hint yet that he is, indeed, ready to run. So we meet Smith at a turning point. Ever since the day when, afraid to take a risk, he turned down the role of Neo in The Matrix in order to film the widely derided Wild Wild West, he has maintained absolute control of his own career, and aimed high. The first result? 2001's Ali and an Oscar nomination. A few years later came the inspiring biopic The Pursuit Of Happyness, bringing yet another Oscar nomination. On the face of it, I Am Legend, with its monster-slaying, is a step back to his comfort zone but Smith doesn't see it this way. There are no backward steps in his plan. "On the one hand, the film is about scary monsters," he says. "On the other, it's about the real horror of solitude and death; it's about rebirth, reinvention of self and the true meaning of hope. It took six months and it was gruelling but that's not to say it wasn't fun to shoot." "One of the key scenes features a major evacuation of New York across the Brooklyn Bridge. This was a major six-night shoot involving a crew of 250, more than a thousand extras and many more people who turned up to watch. One night it was freezing cold so I grabbed the mic and started rapping Summertime. It wasn't planned. A microphone to a rapper is like a magnet. I can't leave it alone." Plenty of actors are driven, focused, do serious stuff, get Oscar nominations and make money – but how many have this much fun in the process? For the key to Smith's indomitable nature, you need only look at his upbringing. His father, a US Air Force sergeant turned refrigerator installer, ran the Smith household on strict military lines and instilled in his son a self-discipline that extended to avoidance of all drugs and only occasional indulgence in alcohol. "Through my teenage years I was too focused on sex to even think about all the other vices," he says. "I'm much the same now. No drugs and only the occasional drink. My motto is this: if you stay ready, you don't have to get ready. I have a need to stay as close to peak condition and the right mental shape as possible for whatever life might call on me to do." So what comes next? So exorbitant is his ambition that you'd be unwise to rule out any achievement for Smith in his forties. He's already set about trying to fix the world, with non-profit organisation Malaria No More. "If I was able to look back and say that I was a part of something that made malaria non-existent on Earth, that would mean more than anything I've achieved as an actor." Then, without prompting, he returns to the theme he's employed as a makeshift interview tease for nigh on a decade: "And I'm going to be the President of the United States." When making similar proclamations in the past, he would routinely insert a get-out clause, but today there's no such hedging of bets. "I always wanted to be the first black president but Barack Obama stole my idea. That's OK with me. Barack can go first and then I'll take my turn." "Once I'm in, I'll start changing a few of the things that urgently need changing. The basis of human sanity is physical survival, right? So I'd start with universal healthcare and shelter. I can't see that happening under Bush. Too many bad things have happened during his presidency. I don't believe he's an evil man, I just think he has an unevolved perspective. It's a good thing he's served his time. Now it's time for Barack Obama." Like Obama, Smith has cultivated an appeal that cuts across racial and sexual boundaries. Everybody, it seems, can find something to like about him. His easy, irresistible charm might just be his greatest talent. That – and his enviable luck. An aura of effortless success is one of the presidential prerequisites. Voters also like a candidate who's fallible, of course. Both Bush and Obama admit to misspent youths, and Smith is no different. In 1989, aged 21 and flush with the success of The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, he squandered more than $1 million on high living and expensive cars, narrowly escaping jail when it was discovered that he had omitted to pay his taxes. It's an incident he now laughs off, saying, "Everybody else was paying their taxes. I figured that nobody needed mine." What else does a presidential hopeful need? Funds, for a start. Not a problem for Smith. He owns homes in Stockholm and his native Philadelphia but his main base is a spectacular £10 million estate on the outskirts of Los Angeles. It is here that Smith gleefully indulges his love of state-of-the-art gadgets. Pushed to pick a favourite, he thinks long and hard before revealing that it's a Japanese-made, paperless toilet. I beg him to spare me the details but he is up and running. "It's a gift from heaven, believe me. People think it's all about suction and that they're going to have their insides removed by this marvel of modern engineering – but it doesn't suck, it blows. Not everyone can handle this thing emotionally, so I've made sure I also have a few normal toilets in my house." Connections count in politics, too. Smith counts numerous fellow A-listers as close friends, and chief among them are Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Together, the Smiths and the Cruises hosted the Beckhams' welcome to LA party in July 2007. "David's hilarious, believe me. In general, Americans tend to be loud and outspoken so David's quiet by comparison. But he knows how to make people laugh. He has this very dry sense of humour. At the party I did my human beat box routine, then handed David the microphone. He looked at the mic, looked at me, and said, 'Everyone knows you've just covered this microphone with spit. Now I have to be courteous and pretend I'm not looking at your spit.' He's a very funny guy.” "As for the chances of soccer making it big in the States, it's never going to take over from baseball or American football in my country but, in the next generation, it's gonna be big. Even bigger than dwarf-throwing.' He lets out a laugh that can be heard a mile away before returning to the pressing question of why, as he approaches his forties, he feels the need to drive his talents even harder, even further. "At 39, I feel anything is possible. But that doesn't mean my body isn't capable of saying 'no more.' In my next movie, Hancock, I play this superhero character and the crew have built a harness that enables me to fly. I run and jump in the air and soar 400 metres over concrete at 55mph before landing at the other side. It looks great but I do wonder whether I should be doing that sort of thing at my age. I guess I'm not happy unless I'm accepting a challenge. And I doubt that will ever change.' I Am Legend is out on December 26 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...in_page_id=1889

Will Smith eyes Asian role Actor Will Smith stops in Hong Kong as part of an Asian press tour to promote his latest film, "I am Legend", and talks about his desire to work in Asia. http://video.google.es/videoplay?docid=8895142641186247683

Will Smith Might Not Be Legendary in China Will Smith made a grand entrance at the premiere of I Am Legend in Hong Kong yesterday after another press conference (hopefully nobody dozed off this time). He's been making his way across Asia to promote the film, but seems to be having some trouble getting the movie released in China. The country is trying to keep out foreign films in order to stimulate their own entertainment industry but Will still fought for his project, saying, "We struggled very, very hard to try to get it to work out, but there are only a certain amount of foreign films that are allowed in." The movie looks like it has definite blockbuster potential, so hopefully getting banned from China won't have a huge effect on the overall success of Will's movie. http://popsugar.com/863588?sidcheck=1&idcheck=1

Legend's Smith Researched Prisoners Will Smith, who plays the last man on Earth in the upcoming SF movie I Am Legend, told reporters that he researched the lives of prisoners of war and convicts in solitary confinement to get into the mindset of an isolated, lonely man. "It was such a wonderful exploration of myself, because what happens is, you get into a situation where you don't have people to create the stimulus for you to respond to," Smith said in a news conference in Beverly Hills, Calif., last week. "So what happens is, you start creating the stimulus and the response. So there's a connection with yourself that where your mind starts to drift to in those types of situations, that you learn things about yourself that you never would even imagine." In the movie, based on Richard Matheson's novel of the same name, Smith plays Robert Neville, the lone survivor of a viral plague that has wiped out the population of New York. Smith's Neville sticks to a rigid routine to govern his isolated life, but as the film progresses, his mind begins to unravel. To achieve his performance, Smith said that he talked with former POWs and prisoners in solitary. "That was sort of the framework for creating the idea," he said. "They said that [the] first thing is a schedule. That you will not survive in solitary if you don't schedule everything. And we talked to Geronimo ji-Jaga--he's formerly Geronimo Pratt of the Black Panthers--and he was in solitary for over three months. And he said, 'You plan things like cleaning your nails. And you'll take two hours, [and] you have to [do it], because it's on the schedule, that you have to just clean your nails.' He said that he spent about six weeks, and he trained roaches to bring him food. And, you know, I'm sitting, I'm like, 'Oh, my God.' The idea of where your mind goes to defend yourself. And either he really did train the roaches, which is huge, or his mind needed that to survive. Either way, you put that on camera, and it's genius." The film, which is told from Neville's point of view, even equivocates about whether Neville is really seeing what he thinks he's seeing. "That was the thing, to be able to get into the mental space where what the truth was for Robert Neville didn't matter," Smith said. "The only thing that mattered was what he saw and what he believed." He added: "It was such a great exploration of what happens to the human mind that is trying to defend itself. And, for me, I'm a better actor for having to create both sides of the scene with no dialogue." I Am Legend opens Dec. 14 http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?c...=3&id=45973

Will in Hong Kong http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acsmLcMl2BI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5LHWfWrH7o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZKXFSdttmg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhppBJpkaiM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQAKNCFYidM

An Exclusive Interview with Francis Lawrence Source: Ryan Rotten December 7, 2007 The last man on Earth is not alone. What an understatement. The last man - in this case, actor Will Smith - was definitely not alone on the set of Warner Bros.' big budget adaptation of Richard Matheson's classic tale I Am Legend. Descending on Manhattan with a colossal crew, the production shut down entire city blocks while Smith played - as WB's aggressive marketing campaign reminds you - Robert Neville, the supposedly lone survivor of a virulent outbreak that wipes humankind off the planet. Leading this army and pushing Smith through solitude and flirtations with madness was Francis Lawrence, director of Constantine and this latest undertaking that has seen directors (Ridley Scott) and actors (Arnold Schwarzenegger) come and go. Initially published in 1954, "I Am Legend" spawned two big screen adaptations, the Hammer Films-rejected Italian production "The Last Man on Earth," starring horror's sinister Vincent Price, and Boris Sagal's "The Omega Man" with Charlton Heston as a square-jawed, gun-totin' Neville and Anthony Zerbe sporting albino makeup and contact lenses. "Omega" hit theaters in '71 and in the subsequent decades, Hollywood knew a modern re-telling was due. Enter Lawrence. ShockTillYouDrop.com caught up to the director for a one-on-one chat following a press conference at The Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. ShockTillYouDrop.com: Post-"Constantine" you probably had a wealth of projects to choose from. Why rescue "I Am Legend" from development hell? Francis Lawrence: I read one of [screenwriter Mark] Protosevich's drafts before I did "Constantine" and it stuck in my head. I hadn't read the novel before that draft. When I was finishing "Constantine," Akiva and I were talking about working together again and Warners gave him that project to resurrect 'cause they thought it was dead. He brought it up to me, and I finally read the novel. Even before these projects, I was always intrigued by someone surviving in an abandoned urban environment. Back when I was doing music videos I'd try to do that with some of the artists I worked with. Trying to sell this feeling of isolation and emptiness. I said, Let's take a crack at it, and we went off with our own take from there. Shock: Like Jack Finney's "The Body Snatchers" - which was coincidentally published the same decade as Matheson's novella - "I Am Legend" is one of those timeless stories that demands to be re-told on the screen every couple of decades. Why do you think that is? Lawrence: I think people are really intrigued by the idea of the last man on earth. That concept is really interesting and in that there are different ideas to play with. Matheson, when he wrote his novel...his ideas are durable. You can transplant them in almost any generation. You look at "Omega Man" and they apply in a very different way than they did in the '50s and they do now. It's a classic idea of what do you do when you're the last person on earth? Shock: Then why do you think this incarnation has been such a tough nut to crack? The words are on the page and the themes are there. Lawrence: I think there are a lot of reasons, I think the original material is not built like a feature. The original material, although a novella and a fair amount in terms of page count, structurally does not have a motor. And it's sort of, as a film, structured like a short film 'cause it's got a button. That's what is tough about it, trying to create a motor. I also think that the creatures - the infected, vampires, however they exist in whatever form the story has taken - are difficult, because based on how much lucidity you give them, intelligence you give them, what can they do, what can't they do, what do they represent - that's been tough. We chose to tell the story of Neville and really create a hero's journey, a character piece about somebody who is struggling to survive after so much loss. Shock: And that falls all on the shoulders of Will Smith - was he signed on prior to your commitment to the film? Lawrence: This project has been around fourteen or fifteen years. Somewhere along the way Will had been on board for a while. I think it was before "28 Days Later" and then that version fell apart. When I came on with Akiva, we both had relationships with him and thought he'd be perfect. We told him our version of the movie, he started to get interested in it again, liked what we had come up with - he also liked some of the old stuff he had been working on and we came up with our version. Shock: The cause behind Neville's isolation has always been a virus that wipes out mankind, but the origins of that virus has changed somewhat in your film. I thought for certain your would have fallen back on bio-terrorism, however, the cause is simply a cure for cancer gone awry. So, kudos for not taking the obvious route... Lawrence: It was interesting because, in talking with the CDC, we learned this is how some of these things come to happen. These horrible viruses can pop up out of nowhere, it's not just bio-terrorism. It can be a change in the environment that brings an unseasonable grain to the area which attracts an animal with a disease and something is born and spreads. That stuff is interesting to me, when it's unexpected. Shock: We've heard that you tried to portray the infected through practical means. Did you find something comfortable in doing them CGI? Lawrence: We had a change. Originally, I might have wanted to do them digitally, but it was a very expensive ordeal so we decided to do everything live. We hired all of these actors, dancers and stunt people, put them through a boot camp, shaved all of their heads and put them through the makeup process. But what we found after literally one day of shooting is that real people couldn't have the abandon we needed. There was going to have to be some digital augmentation anyway because there were attributes we needed to see - their jaws distending, hyperventilating because their metabolism is all jacked up. These are things people can't do. We said, We just have to do these digitally. You get this different feeling from our creations because of their extended jaws and rapid breathing, their skin is sorta transparent. You get these subtle differences that I really liked. Shock: And there's a conscious decision to make them more animalistic, more primal than what they were in the book. This goes back to what you were saying about making Neville the focus, but did you and Akiva consider making the infected more human? Lawrence: We have about an hour of footage that's not in the movie, there are other things we have with the creatures. But the cleanest, clearest, most emotional through line we have in the movie is Will's character. That's the path we chose. Shock: Downstairs Akiva told us "Legend" is a mix of Matheson's book and elements from "Omega Man." There's a scene in the latter where Charlton Heston enters a theater and watches "Woodstock" - here, you have a touching moment of levity that has Neville watching "Shrek." Was the film your choice? "Shrek" is a far cry from "Woodstock"... Lawrence: For a while we had a movie theater sequence, then light became a very important thing in our story. Neville doesn't go in the dark spaces. The idea of "Shrek" for us was that there's something nice about a guy who has lost his family - it's not nice - but there's something nice about the experience of coming downstairs to find a child in front of the TV and "Shrek" is on. If you think about it, the last time he has seen that image was when his daughter was alive. There's something powerful in that and then, beyond that, I liked the counterpoint. Here's a film that's fun and whimsical in this desolate world. Shock: What are your thoughts on the last two adaptations - "The Last Man on Earth" and "Omega Man"? Lawrence: "Last Man on Earth"...Vincent Price is one of my favorite actors, I think he was miscast. It just didn't capture it and Price is not Robert Neville. The film also has big pacing issues. "Omega Man" is a little too tied to a specific generation, and a little cult-y to me. But both have very interesting ideas. You look back at "Omega Man" and you're like, Oh, it's all shot on the Warner Bros. lot. Shock: There are a lot of afros on display, too. Lawrence: There's one mannequin in our film with a giant afro in the background - not sure if you saw that, but that was my homage to "Omega Man." I got really paranoid about it on set that day because it's kind of funny and I didn't know if it was a mistake. But it's just far enough away that it's not corny. Shock: Can you talk a bit about your representation of New York City? This is set in the near future. The fact that much of the drama takes place in the daylight belies the usual post-apocalyptic dismal fare we've seen on screen before. Lawrence: New York City is such a great city to shoot in, but to be in such iconic places like the front of Grand Central Station. Will Smith shooting a machine in front of Grand Central was pretty great. We did a lot of conceptual work on this world and what we didn't want to do is the grim stuff we see in movie after movie after a situation like this. We talked to scientists and ecologists and started looking into what would happen to a city after the population disappeared. And the truth is, nature would start to reclaim the city. It'd become a slightly more beautiful place. Shock: I was visiting New York when you were shooting near 4th Street, where Tower Records used to be. You ran a tight ship - the production assistants were pretty sharp and aggressive. Lawrence: [laughs] We'd have 150 to 200 P.A.s working on a given day, depending on where we were. There were so many of them and some of them were so distant, on the fringe of where we were shooting. I'd take a break, go to Starbucks, come walking back and I would get some dude who'd say, Sorry, man, we're shooting. And I don't have my badge and I'm like, I swear I'm the director. Yeah, right, he says. I would get stopped, Akiva would get stopped. We had to give speeches all of the time telling them they had to stay mellow, they can't actually touch anybody, they have to be polite. There's a core group that went through training with the city on how to treat people with respect 'cause you can't actually stop people. Shock: And what's up next for you - "I'm a Bigger Legend"? Lawrence: I'm working on a couple of things: I might do a pilot for NBC. Then there's a movie at Disney that I've been talking to them about. It's a re-telling of Snow White in 19th century China - that's a cool project. And there's a Chuck Palahniuk project that I'm working on, "Survivor," that a friend of mine did an adaptation for. http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=3957

Washington, Dec 7 (ANI): Will Smith goes that extra mile to be at his very best with his wife - because he fears she will dump him like his first love did. The 'Hitch' star recently confessed that he cannot function unless his wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, sees him as if he's the greatest man alive. "My grandmother just thought that I was just the greatest... There was a look of pride that my grandmother had in her eyes that became the fuel that I need for life. I need my woman and my mother and my daughter and women in general to look at me with that look that my grandmother had," Contactmusic quoted him, as saying. "I was about 15 years old when my first girlfriend cheated on me and it so destroyed my concept of myself that I wasn't good enough. I remember laying in my bed and making a decision that I would never not be good enough again. "I may have gone a little overboard with it in my mind but every single day Jada must have the look. I can't function if she doesn't have that look in her eyes," he added. Hence, he always tries hard for perfection as a father, husband and businessman, he said. "That means in my movies, as a father, as a husband. I have to educate myself to the place that I can contend as the best on earth and that's the only way to keep my woman from leaving me," he said. (ANI) http://www.thecheers.org/news/Celebrity/ne...e-greatest.html