Will Smith in I Am Legend Courtesy of Warner Bros.

Do you remember when you realized you'd be performing in some aspect for the majority of your life?
That's interesting, there was a story I was just thinking about the other day. I went from grade school to high school, and it was my first day in a big high school. And I guess I'm one of those people — I guess my condition would be called counterphobia, right? If that's a word. Like when I'm scared of things, I feel like I have to attack it, right? So I was terrified going into this new school. And I walked into the lunch room — there were about 400 students in the lunch room — and I walked in and whistled as loud as I could whistle, and I said, "Hey, it's okay, he's here now. Everybody can relax, he's here!" And a guy looked up and said, "Don't nobody give a fuck that you here." And I looked and I said, "Well, I just got here. Gimme a few minutes and your girlfriend is gonna care that I'm here."

How old were you?
I was probably 14. So three minutes later, he put a lock over his finger and punched me in the side of my head and knocked me unconscious. And I remember laying there on the steps, and I remember thinking, Wow, that's a lot of power to have. This guy just got himself kicked out of school and could potentially go to jail based on something that I was able to control. And in that moment I remember feeling endowed with power. And I thought to myself, If I have enough power to potentially make somebody throw their life away, the way the universe works, I probably have enough power to change somebody's life for the better. And then from that point I remember starting to think about how I could use that for good things in that one moment, in that one instant — what could I do, what could I say, what could I adjust to make that big a difference in somebody's life for good? And then from that moment I started really thinking and really concentrating, really focusing on that first impression, that first moment, that stepping in and making the right impact and singing the right thing and, you know, looking at people with good intentions versus all your insecurities and all of that. And so I would say, probably I had a handle on it by the time I was 21 or 22 years old, where I felt like I started to have a little command and control over that power that we all have.

Is that why you avoid playing bad guys?
Yeah, I just enjoy inspiring good feelings. Like that's fun for me. Comedy I would say is my most fun. How people react to Hitch and how people react to The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, like there's nothing that matches that. So I just haven't been inspired to play a bad guy. I'm sure there is a bad guy at some point that has the right message, you know? Scarface had the right message about power and drugs and all of that. He showed you exactly where the mess was going to end up. So even though it's a tragic story, there's a positive message in it.

Do you feel that, now, you have more power than other people?
That's funny. No, I feel like, because so many times you have a microphone and a camera in front of you, [what you say] will be pumped around the world — that definitely gives you power. Power is in the movement of people. How many people can you move determines how much power you have. So I would say I have a stronger magnifying glass for the same power, the same amount of power I had when I was 14. I feel like internally it's honed and crafted to be able to use it more specifically, but it's essentially the same amount of power. I just have this, you know, "Warner Brothers machinery" that will pump the message more aggressively.

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