Will Smith on building a legacy

“Just so you know, I’m not a tennis player.”

No, but Will Smith is a pretty good instructor, giving advice (“A little more knee bending!”) And jokes (“It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye!”) To Gayle King of CBS News. the tennis court.

Smith picked up a racket for his latest film, “King Richard.” In the Oscar-nominated performance, she plays the father of Venus and Serena Williams, determined to make her daughters champions on and off the track.

Kinga asked, “For a lot of people, it didn’t look like Richard Williams knew what he was doing.”

“He wasn’t doing what people thought he was doing!” Smith laughed. “He didn’t care about tennis. He was trying to build his family, wasn’t he? He was using tennis to cultivate his family, to cultivate values.”

Watch a clip of Will Smith and Aunjanue Ellis on “King Richard”:

At 53, Smith knows a lot about value. She’s a global superstar, has sold millions of albums, billions of box office tickets, conquered the big screen and the small screen, and is now a best-selling author. Make no mistake, his memoirs, “Will,” are not covered in sugar.

“My suffering has helped me to be who I am,” he said.

The book is a heartfelt confession from a West Philadelphia boy.

King asked, “You said, ‘I was a weird kid with big ears.’ What do you think a weird kid did to you?”

“I lived a little in my imagination,” he replied. “I couldn’t help but see things and why they were so funny.”

But there was nothing funny about her life at home. Smith had a very complicated relationship with his father, a veteran who ruled the family with discipline, fear, and fists. At age nine, Smith saw his father beat his mother. “And I didn’t do anything,” he said.

“But as a child, Will, what are you supposed to do?”

“You know, kids’ minds don’t work like that. I was expecting him to be a superhero.”

At one point, when his parents separated, Smith said he was thinking about taking his own life.

“And it was the only time in my life that I considered suicide, and it was just, ‘It was my fault.’ “It was somehow my fault that my family was collapsing.”

As a child, Smith coped with being the class clown. His nickname began with a teacher:

“Miss Brown, you called me a charming prince,” he laughed. “Lovely prince. So I was the prince. And then I added the fresco.”

“And did he stay? Did he get stuck?” King asked.

“It stuck strong.”

So did his love of hip-hop. He recalled his first rap at the age of 12:

At the age of one year
I had just started
on my trip to the TOP.
And at two years old
everyone knew it
I was a hell, eh, MC.

“Actually, I wrote ‘eh’!” he laughed.

He would reach the top, and then some, first in rap, then as “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”

New to acting, Smith would memorize the lines of the entire cast, which he now laughs at today.

“But you look at that and say, ‘Oh, beginner mistake’?” King asked.

“I said,‘ That guy is a horrible actor. It won’t work out in this business! ”He laughed.

But he did. Smith could have stopped with a successful TV show. But that was not part of the plan.

“They asked you, ‘What do you want from this race?’ And you said you wanted to be …? “

“The biggest movie star in the world,” he replied.

Smith’s dream came true with a series of box office hits. “I’m just saying, ‘Gayle, you know, I mean, people make movies in a row, but if you make three movies in a row … I mean, what are we talking about? What are we talking about?’ “Independence Day”? “Men in Black”?”

King asked, “Have you ever considered your career as a deterrent to you in Hollywood, given the success you’ve had?”

“You know, I never considered my career to be preventing me from being able to do anything,” Smith said. “And I have firmly believed that, first and foremost, you must believe, and when you believe, and if you believe in the level of your belief, [that] will determine your ability to bend the universe. If you don’t believe me, no one will believe you. ”

For Smith, fame takes a back seat to the family. He is the father of three children: Trey, his first wife, Sherry Zampino; and Jaden and Willow with his 25-year-old wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. They are a couple of power. Many believe they have an unconventional marriage.

King asked, “How are you doing all the talk about your marriage?”

“I’ve decided that talking about my life can be beneficial to people,” he said. “I think the talk is the first step to having a real conversation and being able to really explore if some of the things in your heart are loving or poisonous.”

“You both spoke very frankly; it’s a very famous story: infidelity in marriage and how you navigated at the time …”

“Yes, never. There has never been infidelity in our marriage.”

“Has there ever been infidelity in marriage?”

“Never,” he said. “Jada and I talk about everything. And we’ve never been surprised by anything, ever.”

What may surprise you is how Smith accepted the pain of his past. He made peace with his father when he died in 2016.

“In those last moments with my dad, when I was able to forgive my dad, I realized surprisingly that I could forgive myself,” Smith said. “My father’s death began a new stage in my life.”

And this new phase continues with the mission to make a difference and build a legacy that is lasting and meaningful.

King asked, “So sitting here today, there are a lot of people watching, saying, ‘Will Smith is at the top of his game. Will Smith seems to have it all. “What do you have left to do that you want to do?”

“Life has become very, very easy for me now, right?” He said. “I think I’m a better actor than ever. And I think, you know, these next ten years of my career, I think, will be the best of my performances.

“But I also feel like I can help people. There’s a teacher inside me trying to get out. I’ve learned to be happy here. And I’ve learned to create love here. And I want to share.”

For more information:

• “King Richard” is now available in theaters and is available upon request
• “Will” by Will Smith with Mark Manson (Penguin), hardcover, large paperback, Spanish paperback, e-book and audio formats, available on Amazon and Indiebound
• Follow Will Smith Twitter and Instagram

Story produced by Gabriel Falcon. Editor: Joseph Frandino.