Amid controversy after slapping comedian Chris Rock on Oscar night, actor Will Smith recounts his difficult childhood and the failure of his fitness project in Best Shape of My Lifea six-part series that has been streaming on YouTube since 2021.
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It’s an amazing documentary that lifts the veil on the Hollywood celebrity’s childhood and his relationship with an abusive and alcoholic father.
While Will Smith had gained weight to interpret his role in King Richard – the film that recently won him the Oscar for best actor – he challenges himself to lose 20 pounds in 20 weeks. It’s a business that demands complete commitment and iron discipline from him.
While taking up this challenge, he decides to finish writing a biography that will bring him back to some of his darkest memories.
Entertain to survive
“What you see of Will Smith is largely a construction, explains the actor between two intense training sessions. A carefully hand-built character, created to protect me, to hide me from the world, to hide the coward that I am. I learned to entertain to survive. »
This “cowardice” that he has had with him since childhood comes from a traumatic episode: little Will, 9, who saw his father hit his mother so hard that she started coughing up blood. and who remained without doing anything.
This angry father struggling with alcohol problems, the young Will wanted to please him, to entertain him, so that he would leave his mother alone and not hit the members of his family.
“I blame myself, I should have protected her and I thought it was my fault”, confides the one who even thought of suicide, if we trust the extracts read from his biography in one of the episodes of the series.
In light of the revelations in this documentary, the Oscars incident takes on another dimension. By hitting the presenter Chris Rock who had made a joke about the shaved head of his wife, the international star seems to relive an episode of his childhood.
Between the training sessions in Dubai (the motivation is military for those who grew up in the discipline) and the often postponed writing sessions, the actor’s psychologist says that Will has always used humor to hide his emotions, as a means defense.
“The more he laughs, the more he hurts,” she said. But the pressure, one day, becomes too much. »
It’s a remark that, in light of the recent slap in the face to Chris Rock in front of millions of viewers, takes on a sadly prescient air.
In his documentary, the actor tackles the themes of ambition, control, fear and the incessant desire to please.
Abandonment
At week 15 of his fitness, he decides to stop the experiment, exhausted from combining training and difficult dives into the past.
He explains that “it’s the journey more than the destination that matters and the authenticity more than the mystery” that he wishes to cultivate.
This failure is a first for Will Smith, explains his psychologist. For her, it’s a good thing that the celebrity prefers to abandon the project rather than continue it to save appearances.
It’s a good lesson: letting go rather than stubbornness. The actor could have held her back before committing the irreparable at the Oscars.