55 Facts About Will Smith

Will Smith began his career starring as a fictionalized version of himself on the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air .

Will Smith released the solo albums Big Willie Style, Willennium, Born to Reign, and Lost and Found, which contained the US number one singles "Gettin' Jiggy wit It" and "Wild Wild West".

Will Smith has received four Grammy Awards for his rap performances.

Will Smith achieved wider fame as a leading man in films such as the action film Bad Boys, its sequels Bad Boys II and Bad Boys for Life, and the sci-fi comedies Men in Black, Men in Black II, and Men in Black 3 .

Will Smith then starred in a range of commercially successful films, including I, Robot, Shark Tale, Hitch, I Am Legend, Hancock, Seven Pounds, Suicide Squad and Aladdin .

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Will Smith subsequently resigned from the Academy and was banned from attending all Academy functions, including the Oscars, for ten years.

Will Smith grew up in West Philadelphia's Wynnefield neighborhood and was raised Baptist.

Will Smith has an elder sister named Pamela and two younger siblings, twins Harry and Ellen.

Will Smith attended Our Lady of Lourdes, a private Catholic elementary school in Philadelphia, and Overbrook High School.

Will Smith's parents separated when he was 13 and divorced around the year 2000.

Will Smith said that this influenced his decision not to use profanity in his music.

Townes and Will Smith were introduced to each other by chance in 1985, as Townes was performing at a house party only a few doors down from Will Smith's residence, and he was missing his hype man.

Will Smith enlisted a friend to join as the beatboxer of the group, Clarence Holmes, making them a trio.

Will Smith spent money freely around 1988 and 1989 and underpaid his income taxes.

Will Smith was struggling financially in 1990 when the NBC television network signed him to a contract and built a sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, around him.

Will Smith set for himself the goal of becoming "the biggest movie star in the world", studying box office successes' common characteristics.

In 1989, Smith was arrested in relation to an alleged assault on his record promoter, William Hendricks; all charges were dismissed.

In 1996, Will Smith starred as part of an ensemble cast in Roland Emmerich's Independence Day.

Will Smith portrayed heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali in the 2001 biopic Ali.

In 2002, following a four-year musical hiatus, Will Smith returned with his third album Born to Reign, which reached number 13 on the Billboard 200 and was certified gold by the RIAA.

In 2005, Will Smith was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records for attending three premieres in a 24-hour time span.

Will Smith left an imprint of his hands and feet outside the theater in front of many fans.

Will Smith himself has said that he considers the film to be "aggressively unique".

In 2008, Will Smith was reported to be developing a film entitled The Last Pharaoh, in which he would be starring as Taharqa.

Will Smith played Nicky Spurgeon, a veteran con artist who takes a young, attractive woman under his wing.

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Will Smith was set to star in the sci-fi thriller Brilliance, an adaptation of Marcus Sakey's novel of the same name scripted by Jurassic Park writer David Koepp, but he left the project to work on the Ridley Scott-produced sports drama Concussion.

In Concussion, Will Smith played Dr Bennet Omalu of the Brain Injury Research Institute, the first to discover chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

In 2016, Will Smith played Deadshot in the supervillain team-up action film Suicide Squad.

Later that year, Will Smith starred in director David Frankel's drama Collateral Beauty, playing a New York advertising executive who succumbs to a deep depression after a personal tragedy.

Hollywood Reporter critic David Rooney criticized Will Smith's performance writing as "the least interesting component in a madly overqualified cast".

Will Smith collaborated with his director from Suicide Squad, David Ayer.

Also in 2017, Will Smith released the song "Get Lit" a collaboration between him and his former group mate Jazzy Jeff.

Will Smith performed the official song "Live It Up" alongside American singer Nicky Jam and Kosovar singer Era Istrefi at the closing ceremony of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Moscow, Russia.

Will Smith was featured on rapper Logic's song "Don't Be Afraid To Be Different", from his fifth studio album Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

Later that year, Will Smith had his second starring role in an animated film, in Spies in Disguise, opposite Tom Holland.

Will Smith voiced Lance Sterling, a spy who teams up with the nerdy inventor who creates his gadgets .

Later in the night, Will Smith was named Best Actor for King Richard and apologized to the Academy and the other nominees, but not to Rock, in his acceptance speech.

ABC, AMPAS, and the Screen Actors Guild condemned Will Smith following the incident, prompting an investigation by the Academy's Board of Governors.

Will Smith's resignation means he is no longer able to vote on Oscar nominations as a member of the Academy.

Several film projects that Will Smith had been involved in were put on hold as a result of the controversy.

Will Smith acted in two episodes of the sitcom All of Us, and has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and the David Blaine: Real or Magic TV special.

Will Smith has said he wanted a polyamorous relationship with actress Halle Berry and ballerina Misty Copeland but ultimately abandoned the idea after therapy.

In 2018, Will Smith celebrated his 50th birthday by performing a bungee jump from a helicopter in the Grand Canyon.

Will Smith was raised in a Baptist household and attended a Roman Catholic school and church.

Will Smith's was the most spiritually certain person that I had ever met in my entire life.

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Will Smith has said that he feels a deep connection to Hindu spirituality and Indian astrology.

In 2021, Will Smith announced that production of his upcoming film, Emancipation, was being pulled from Georgia because of the recent passage of the Election Integrity Act of 2021, which critics viewed as a restrictive voting law, negatively impacting non-white voters.

Will Smith has often been noted for achieving groundbreaking success throughout his musical career, and with his work as an actor in television and film.

Will Smith has been cited as one of the "greatest actors" of his generation by several publications.

Will Smith subsequently resigned from the Academy and was banned from attending Academy functions, including the Oscars, for ten years.

Will Smith later launched his acting career by starring in the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air; the show's success is considered to be a watershed moment for Hip-Hop and Black television, with many publications referring to it as one of the "Greatest Sitcoms of All Time".

Will Smith currently holds the record for the most consecutive $100 million plus hits at the US box office, with eight.

Will Smith starred as Daryl in the movie Bright, which broke the record at the time for the most-viewed Netflix film ever for its first week, and became the first major Hollywood film to skip theatrical release over streaming platform for simultaneous viewing by more than 100 million people worldwide.

Will Smith's upcoming movie Emancipation sold to Apple Studios for $120 million in June 2020, which made it the largest film festival acquisition deal in film history.

In 2022, Will Smith became the fifth black actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor.