As hard as it may be to believe now, director Roland Emmerich had to convince the studio to cast Will Smith in the part of the Marine captain who has first contact with the genocidal alien race and plays a key role in destroying them. Known at the time primarily as a Grammy-winning hip-hop artist and star of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Smith was in Bad Boys the year before Independence Day came out, but his draw at the international box office was somehow still considered an open question.
The July 4th favorite cemented Smith’s movie-star status, and in its wake, he headlined 1997’s Men in Black with Tommy Lee Jones. The same year, he released his Big Willie Style album, whose breakout singles included the M.I.B. theme song, along with “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” and “Just the Two of Us.” He went on to star opposite Gene Hackman in Enemy of the State (1998), followed by the deliciously campy Wild Wild West (1999), with that film’s catchy title theme being featured on his Willennium album.
The new millennium brought Smith continued success with the title roles in The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) and Ali (2001), followed by the sequels Men in Black II (2002) and Bad Boys II (2003). His hot streak continued with the action sci-fi I, Robot (2004) and rom-com Hitch (2005), and he was ubiquitous in the zeitgeist by the time he starred in The Pursuit of Happyness (2006), I Am Legend (2007) and Hancock (2008). Smith once again donned “the last suit you’ll ever wear” in the time-traveling Men in Black 3 (2012), with other highlights including the live-action version of Aladdin (2019) as Genie. He’s also been a producer on numerous projects, including ones in which he did not star, like the 2010 Karate Kid reboot featuring his son, Jaden, and Jackie Chan.
Smith won an Oscar for his lead performance in King Richard (2021), playing the father of Venus and Serena Williams. Famously, however, minutes before his name was announced, the A-lister slapped Chris Rock onstage after the comedian made a joke referencing Smith’s wife. He apologized for his behavior and resigned from the Academy, but was banned from the Oscars for a decade, and the fallout reverberated into the reception of his follow-up project, Emancipation (2022). More recently, he executive produced Bel-Air, the dramatic reimagining of Fresh Prince, and in 2025 released his first musical album in two decades, Based on a True Story.
Leave a Reply