All this time, I thought Will Smith was more of a milquetoast dildo, but as his recent interview with Vulture illustrates, he also has elements of the Existential Buffoon as well. Will Smith contains multitudes.
I’ve read that you believe life can be understood through patterns.
Will: I’m a student of patterns. At heart, I’m a physicist. I look at everything in my life as trying to find the single equation, the theory of everything.
Do you see patterns too, Jaden?
Jaden: I think that there is that special equation for everything, but I don’t think our mathematics have evolved enough for us to even—I think there’s, like, a whole new mathematics that we’d have to learn to get that equation.
Will: I agree with that.
Jaden: It’s beyond mathematical. It’s, like, multidimensional mathematical, if you can sort of understand what I’m saying.
I don’t think these two are as dumb as say, Tyrese, or Stallone (your prototypical existential buffoons), but it takes a special kind of person that will jump right into their theories of “multidimensional mathematics” while out promoting a movie about an Earth “where humans haven’t set foot in a thousand years, where everything has evolved to kill humans.”
Pardon me if I don’t take notes on your amateur string theory, guy-who-chose-an-M-Night-Shyamalan-movie-over-Tarantino.
You and Jaden have acted in two movies together, including After Earth. Are you planning on a third?
Will: If you were a student of the pattern, you’d have to say we’re going to do another one.
Jaden: I definitely would do another one, absolutely. You know, how Johnny Depp and Tim Burton always do movies together, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio? We’ll have a relationship like that.
Wait, is Leonardo DiCaprio one of Martin Scorsese’s dumb wiener kids? More people should hear about this, that sounds like big news.
It’s been reported that you might be dating Kylie Jenner. The Kardashians have treated their fame as the family business. Do you guys see yourselves as similar or different?
[Will, laughing, holds up his hand for Jaden not to speak.]
Jaden: I’m trying to understand.
Will: Don’t. You know, he’s never had to, to deal with those kinds of questions.
Well, forget the Kardashians … maybe you could just …
Will: [Mimicking] “So how do you think your life is similar or un-similar to people’s names in Calabasas?” For our family, the entire structure of our life, our home, our business relationships—the entire purpose is for everyone to be able to create in a way that makes them happy. Fame is almost an inconsequential by-product of what we’re really trying to accomplish. We are trying to put great things into the world, we’re trying to have fun, and we’re trying to become the greatest versions of ourselves in the process of doing things we love. So the idea of fame or exploitation or orchestrating the media is sometimes even less than desirable for us.
“I can’t imagine orchestrating the media,” he said while deftly deflecting an undesirable question, presenting a unified front, and providing a rehearsed statement outlining the family talking points. “I’m just me. If you don’t believe me, you can ask my lead North American magazine publicist, Joe, who has prepared a statement of normality.”
Will: You know, the forum of media that we’re in can’t really handle the complexity of things that we say all the time.
Indeed. Perhaps we just lack a “European sensibility.” (*inhales farts, releases line of sneakers*)
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