Will Smith

The scene is Arabia — at night, of course. In a cavern brimming with gold treasures, the street urchin Aladdin (Mena Massoud) has ventured to retrieve a magic lantern for the nefarious Jafar (Marwan Kenzari). He’s been promised boundless riches for this service: “Enough to impress a princess.” (You see, Aladdin has fallen for a princess named Jasmine, and fears she may be unmoved by his waifish ways.)

He finds the lantern, but upon delivering it to Jafar, Aladdin is thrown back into the cave. In a neat twist, his pet monkey, Abu, steals the lantern back from Jafar, and, just in the nick of time, it hurdles down into the depths with them.

Alone with Abu, Aladdin is struck by a sound impulse and decides to rub the lamp. It promptly releases a huge cloud of blue smoke, which rises high over his head, flashes with lightning, and emits a monstrous entity.

“Oh Great One who summons me!,” the figure bellows, “I stand by my oath: loyalty to wishes three!” Aladdin cowers in awe; the monkey hugs his leg.

But then the figure grins. “I’m kidding,” it gurgles. And sure enough — it’s Will Smith.

Everyone can sigh; there’s nothing to be afraid of.

If there’s one thing to be assumed from seeing Will Smith’s face in a movie, it’s that you’re in for a good time. For the six-year-olds who sat through Disney’s live action remake of Aladdin earlier this year, it may have been their first time seeing him onscreen — but for those of us who’ve been around long enough, his presence is a dear reminder that there’s always something, or someone, to smile about.

I doubt many of the kids in Aladdin’s audience made the connection between Will Smith’s latest incarnation, as The Genie, and his long-ago role as hip-hop MC, The Prince. Back in 1985, Smith, along with Jeffrey “DJ Jazzy Jeff” Townes, released his first single, “Girls Ain’t Nothing But Trouble,” which sampled melodies from the theme to the 1960s TV sitcom I Dream of Jeannie. Full circle, so it would seem, to go from one Jeannie to another — but the Will Smith of yesteryear was a far different creature (in character, at least, if not in face) than the one at work today.

The song is all about the untrustworthy ways of women, specifically of a single, unstable girlfriend. As Smith relates to his listeners:

All of a sudden she jumped out of her seat Snatched me up by my wrist and took me out in the street She started grabbin’ all over me, kissing and hugging, So I shoved her away and I said, “You better stop buggin’!” She got mad looked me dead in my face Threw her hands in the air and yelled out, “Rape!”

Given Aladdin’s romantic preoccupations, it’s interesting that The Genie doesn’t think to serenade him with this song. Instead, he opts for “You Ain’t Never Had a Friend Like Me” (a dubious claim, since I seem to remember a guy named Robin Williams offering the same sentiment twenty-seven years ago), and proceeds to help Aladdin make all the right moves toward securing his heart’s desire.

This is in itself a Smithian throwback: remember Hitch (2005), when he helped Kevin James win over Amber Valletta? (No, the movie was neither sci-fi nor fantasy.) As the love-expert Alexander “Hitch” Hitchens, Smith was a sheepish cad who traded in deceit and trickery as acceptable mating devices for romantically hapless men. But as it happened, Allegra (Valletta) fell for Albert (James) not because of what Hitch told him to do but because of Albert’s own awkward, earnest self.

It seems that Smith’s onscreen persona has since learned that lesson: rather than encourage Aladdin’s urge to put on a show for Jasmine, Genie helps him understand that he was always worth her affection. He doesn’t need riches to impress — he’s a great guy just the way he is.

Good-natured self-acceptance is a change in tone for Smith, who for years was unsatisfied with being anything other than the guy on top. After the success of his hit TV series, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990-96), he set about becoming, in his own words, “the biggest movie star in the world.” He quickly put himself in the running with Bad Boys (1995), Independence Day (‘96) and Men in Black (‘97) — a trio of hits that formalized his impish charm and recast the upbeat social climber (“In West Philadelphia born and raised…!”) into an affable agent of authority. He placed his order for tougher meat with Ali (2001), and was duly served with an Oscar nomination. Five years later, he was nominated again for playing a single, homeless father living with his son in The Pursuit of Happyness (2006); if there has ever been a demonstration of range in the profession of acting, it was Will Smith pretending to be man living on the brink of poverty.

It wouldn’t be until 2008 that he finally realized his dream: that year, Will Smith became the world’s highest-grossing actor. Between I Am Legend (2007) and Hancock (2008), he emerged as the ultimate post-9/11 American male movie star: chiseled with self-discipline, sobered by loss, the avenging angel navigating an apocalyptic wasteland. His was one of the most recognizable faces in the world; millions of people saw his movies. He was celebrated, revered. Such commercial success was unprecedented for a man of color; it’s a sly coincidence that the year he topped the charts was the same year that Barack Obama ascended to the White House.

And yet, there was always a quiet discontent lurking under Smith’s veneer; like a court jester, all of his humor cloaked a more arresting existential dilemma. From the red carpet, his smile invited his audience’s trust — much like the one that Nick Caraway describes his affluent neighbor as having in The Great Gatsby:

…It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it… It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as would like to believe in yourself…

Like Jay Gatsby, Will Smith met his public where they wanted to be met, and they rewarded him for it. But what kind of person makes it their goal to be on top? Where does that desire stem from? It’s one thing to want it all, another thing to actually get it; the man with the reassuring smile was himself constantly seeking reassurance. Do you see me? Am I big enough? Am I worthy of your attention?

Following the box office failure of his 2013 sci-fi adventure After Earth, Smith seemed distraught. (“It’s the first time I haven’t opened at number one,” he lamented on late night TV.) But it seemed to galvanize a period of self-assessment in the megastar — a redirecting of focus, and an overdue tending to personal wounds. While promoting the 2015 biopic Concussion, Smith sat on an actors’ roundtable for the Hollywood Reporter. At one point during the interview, host Stephen Galloway turned to Smith and asked, “Do you ever get nervous?”

The actor smiled; hesitated. Slowly, the words worked their way out:

“I live in complete terror.”

Bubbling with charisma and charm, as always, Smith went on to relate a key traumatic incident in his life: at the age of fifteen, he discovered that his girlfriend was cheating on him. “And I remember making a decision,” he said, “that nobody would ever cheat on me again.” The best way to do that, he figured, would be to totally surpass all his competition.

“I’ve always felt like, ‘if my movies are number one, my life is going to work out great.’”

Well, his movies are number one again. In June, Aladdin became Smith’s highest grossing movie to date — surpassing the success of Suicide Squad (2016) and Independence Day. He is currently filming a sequel to Bad Boys and, this October, he’ll be starring in the sci-fi thriller Gemini Man. In it, he plays an aging assassin who is hunted by a younger clone of himself — also played by Smith. He makes it his mission to intercept this younger self before it can make the same bad life choices that he’s made.

When they finally do meet, the older Smith relates his purpose. The younger Smith shudders. “You’re trying to rattle me,” he pouts.

“I’m trying to save you!,” his double replies.

Really, this is just a more heated and less colorful version of the exchanges between Aladdin and Genie. In the minds of his public, Will Smith has never fully grown up — he’s still that cute kid smiling from our TV sets, delighted at the prospect of having “made it.” So long as he continues to be a bad boy, or a clone of himself, we will continue to feel this way. But the Prince now appears to be self-aware in a way that he wasn’t before; he’s no longer trying to impress us. He’s trying to have a good time.

It’s only right that the gift Will Smith has bestowed upon us for so many years is one that he’s finally bestowed upon himself.