Will Smith’s upcoming autobiography, Will, looks to be a classic dishy Hollywood memoir.
People has been sharing some spicy excerpts, and today’s revelation is no exception. It concerns Smith falling “in love” with the great actress Stockard Channing, or at least part of him did.
Always being the striving actor, Smith stayed firmly in character, as Paul Poitier, during the making of the 1993 hit film, “Six Degrees of Separation.” And his onscreen infatuation morphed into his real life.
It seems Smith, who had just welcomed son Trey with his then-wife Sheree Zampino into his life, kept the feelings for Channing’s character going when he went home to his real family.
Smith clarifies that while his character-based feelings increased, the relationship between him and Channing remained professional.
Nevertheless, as Smith writes in the book, “I can imagine that this experience [for Sheree] was unsettling to say the least. She'd married a guy named Will Smith, and now she was living with a guy named Paul Poitier.”
“After the film wrapped,” he continued, “Sheree and Trey and I moved back to L.A. Our marriage was off to a rocky start. I found myself desperately yearning to see and speak to Stockard."
As many actors have found out over the years, the “Method” style of acting -- where you take on the character during the entire process of making the film, not just while on set -- can become psychologically dangerous.
Smith has spoken on the technique before, in a 2015 interview with Esquire.
“With ‘Six Degrees of Separation’,” said Smith, “I got a taste early of the dangers of going too far for a character… So the movie was over and I went home, and I was dying to see Stockard. I was like, 'Oh no! What have I done?' That was my last experience with Method acting, where you're reprogramming your mind. You're actually playing around with your psychology. You teach yourself to like things and to dislike things."
It’s true that in the right hands (and minds), Method acting can create unforgettably intense, immersive, and iconic performances. See: Robert De Niro in “Raging Bull, Charlize Theron in “Monster,” Marlon Brando in “On the Waterfront,” or any Daniel Day Lewis performance.
Roughly begun in the late 1930s, it was a technique developed by the Group Theater in New York City, headed by Lee Strasberg, Sanford Meisner, and Stella Adler. It’s a style that is still revered and is generally still considered the modern way to get into your character.
"It is a really dangerous place when you get good at it,” Smith explained. “But once I had that experience, I was like -- no more Method acting…. For ‘Six Degrees,’ I wanted to perform well so badly that I was spending six and seven and eight days in character before shooting, and you have to be careful with that."
High acting or not, what did Stockard Channing -- one of the greatest actors of the last half century herself -- think of Smith’s, uh, Paul Poitier’s feelings towards her?
At a “Six Degrees of Separation” event in 2015, Channing told Page Six, “Well, I'm very flattered. That's a wonderful thing . . . I adored him from the first time I laid eyes on him because I thought he was genuinely sweet. I felt very protective of him, because it was his first big job. It's amazing for me to hear that he felt that way, I'm delighted.”
In Will, as People details, Smith digs into many aspects of his long career, including the end of his relationship with Zampino, 53; his 23-year marriage to Jada Pinkett Smith, 50; and his journey as a father to Trey, 29, Jaden, 23, and Willow, 21.
We’ll assume he stays in the character of “Will Smith, father” for his kids.
Lights, camera, action!
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