Special Coverage 2008 Fall Movie PreviewThe Must List2008 Fall TV PreviewSound Bites
By Mark Harris
Mark Harris
Mark Harris
Mark Harris is a writer and former executive editor of EW

One steamy night in July, Will Smith, a 21-year-old rapper out of West Philadelphia, put on a sweatsuit and drove to Los Angeles' Century Plaza Hotel for a command performance: an NBC press party at which the network's stars were expected to smile, shake hands all around, and drum up publicity for their new series and movies. But when Smith arrived, he quickly and politely moved past the cordon of celebrities, and found a spot in a secluded corner behind a high hedge, where he sat for most of the evening, sleepily eyeing a pickup basketball game near the pool and eating dinner. NBC didn't mind allowing its star-in-the-making one more night in the shadows. If the network has its way, Will Smith is going to land in the limelight and make NBC hundreds of millions of dollars. Smith is the owner of several platinum records, a deferred scholarship to MIT, and a gold-and-diamond herringbone chain that announces his public identity: the Fresh Prince. Under this alias, Smith fronts one of the world's most popular rap duos, and he's also the main attraction on the new hip-hop- meets-mainstream comedy The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (Mondays at 8 p.m., starting Sept. 10), which NBC hopes will achieve Cosby-level success. With its potential to draw in young, old, black, and white viewers, Fresh Prince is considered vital to NBC's prime-time lineup. The network has accordingly made Smith's days long and public, and, except for the supper behind the hedge, he has raced relentlessly through NBC's paces. At one point in the preseason festivities, he was called to a microphone to pay tribute in song to network chairman Brandon Tartikoff, and if Smith felt awkward, he didn't show it. ''Carol Burnett, she was right in swing/And you hit it on the head with that show called Wings,'' he chanted gamely to the man he called ''M.C. B.T.'' ''B.T.'' was clearly pleased. Tartikoff has made no secret of his belief that Smith represents the network's best hope for an instant hit since The Golden Girls made its debut in 1985. In NBC's publicity barrage, Smith has been compared to Michael J. Fox, Eddie Murphy, and Oprah Winfrey, and the network has rushed the young musician through an unusually intense whirlwind of photo shoots, interviews, press sessions, promotions, and rehearsals. As he starts work on the series and a new rap album, Smith is taking it all calmly. ''I'll work on the show from nine to five and go into the studio from six to midnight for as long as I can do it,'' he says. If Smith accepts the pace, he seems slightly nervous about the hype. ''People are expecting a lot, and I've never done any acting, so I don't want to be compared to anyone,'' he says in a soft voice. ''I have a natural feel, but let me practice first so I can be proud of what I do. This is really new for me. I had to learn not to look at the camera. In videos, that's what you do.'' Doing that, in fact, was how he came to TV. It was Smith's in-your-face, eyeballs-to-the-lens performances in the comical videos for ''Parents Just Don't Understand'' and ''I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson'' that first attracted TV producers. Smith and his partner, 24-year-old Jeff Townes (who, as D.J. Jazzy Jeff, provides music for Smith's lyrics), have worked together since Smith was a student at Philadelphia's Overbrook High. Their clowning, flavored with suburban teenage complaints and pop-culture pokes at everything from The Brady Bunch to Freddy Krueger, first yielded a hit in 1986, when ''Girls Ain't Nothin' but Trouble'' became a European sensation. They weren't exactly ready. ''We landed in England and thought, 'Damn, what is this? What are they screaming for?''' Smith and Townes expanded that success with the albums He's the D.J., I'm the Rapper (1987) and And in This Corner (1989). In music videos, their cartoonish songs became mini-movies displaying Smith's instinctive comic grace. But, though Smith was eager to try acting, he fled when producers first came knocking. He didn't show up for an audition for The Cosby Show last year. An offer from A Different World followed and on the day of his tryout, Smith was again absent. ''I realized later,'' he says, ''how scared I was to take that step.'' Smith eventually decided he was ''ready to take a shot.'' At The Arsenio Hall Show, he met Benny Medina, head of black music at Warner Bros. Records, who approached him with an idea for a show loosely based on Medina's life. It would be about a black teenager, steeped in East Coast hip-hop culture, who moves in with relatives in Beverly Hills. Smith signed up within days, and music impresario Quincy Jones, whose credits range from his own recent album, Back on the Block, to Michael Jackson's Thriller, agreed to be co-executive producer. Weeks later, Jones assembled NBC executives to assess the acting skills of his new star, whose experience consisted of a brief role in a children's special. Between concert performances, Smith flew to L.A, went to Jones' Bel- Air home, disappeared into a bedroom to rehearse, came out and performed two scenes from an unused script written for musician Morris Day of the Time. NBC approved the series almost instantly.


Page 1 of 2