Steven Spielberg
How he convinced Will Smith for Men in Black
© imago/Everett Collection
Will Smith almost didn’t become part of the “Men in Black”. But successful director Steven Spielberg did not give up.
Successful director Steven Spielberg (76) spared no expense or effort to have Will Smith (54) on board “Men in Black”. The multiple Oscar winner served as executive producer on what is now a 1997 cult film.
Spielberg had him flown in by helicopter
“He sent a helicopter just to talk to me,” Smith recalls in Kevin Hart’s (44) show “Hart to Hart” on Peacock. “I landed in front of his house and he already had me at hello,” jokes Smith, alluding to the cult sentence that Renée Zellweger (54) then replied to Tom Cruise (61) on his declaration of love in “Jerry Maguire” (1996).
Spielberg received Smith in his home, which also had posters from his film hits “Jurassic Park” and “Jaws”. At that moment, Smith apparently became very aware of who he actually wanted to say no to here.
How can you say no to Spielberg?
“He really took me to task,” Smith continued. “He confronted me about why I didn’t want to do his film… if he had to dig deeper, he probably would have said, ‘Kid, you know I did Jaws, right? You know, that I did ‘ET’,” Smith said with a grin.
“I just didn’t want to do two Alien movies back-to-back,” Smith explains his motivation at the time. “I didn’t want to go on with ‘Men in Black’ after ‘Independence Day’ – I didn’t want to be the alien guy.”
Mega success with the “Men in Black” films
It’s obvious that Smith allowed himself to be persuaded to do “Men in Black”. A decision he has certainly never regretted to this day. The film was a mega success and was followed by two sequels. A fourth part “Men in Black: International” followed in 2019 – but without Smith, but with Chris Hemsworth (39).