Will Smith is best known for starring in big-budget, action-heavy movies, including lucrative sci-fi films.
But the actor has also drawn a hard line on projects he believes could disrupt his family’s peace. That detail offers a revealing glimpse into how the Smiths deal with negativity when the cameras aren’t rolling.
Smith rarely takes on roles that require him to portray dark or disturbing scenes, and his daughter, Willow Smith, has an explanation why.
Smith reportedly made $2 million to play Detective Mike Lowrey in “Bad Boys,” with his salary rising to $20 million for the 2003 sequel. According to ScreenRant, Smith earned a reported $169 million in total for his three “Men in Black” films.
Some of his more emotionally weighted films include “Ali,” “Pursuit of Happyness,” and “Seven Pounds.”
Willow says her father carefully considers how certain roles could affect the family’s peace.
On Sept. 23, 25-year-old Willow spoke with Kid Cudi on his podcast, “Big Bro with Kid Cudi,” where she explained why her father has turned down some roles.
The conversation came as the two discussed Cudi’s upcoming film “Doe,” which follows 24 hours in the life of a drug addict living on the streets of Los Angeles.
Cudi, who plays the addict, said filming some of the drug scenes became so “gnarly” that he eventually told the producer they had done enough takes.
He later said he needed time to decompress at home after shooting one particularly heavy scene.
“I cut on the lights. I roll up my joint and I put on some happy music, smoking my joint and I go to bed. I’m just like it is a new day, because I have heard about actors not being able to cut it off,” he explained.
Willow, who agreed, used her father as an example. She said, “No, my dad has specifically said no to certain roles because he felt like the energy was too heavy to be bringing into the house.”
She continued, “’Like, nah, I’m not even going to touch that because that’s like, I don’t want to be coming home to my family in this.’ And that’s like a deep one. Like you really have to embody it if you’re doing it if you’re doing it right, you know?”
Fans responded to Willow’s statement about her father on the podcast’s Instagram page.
One person said, “Will Smith is the greatest! He made some great choices, if he says no about something I believe whatever reason!”
Someone else wrote, “Interesting. No wonder he’s never done any dark roles. I wonder what roles he rejected.”
A third person wrote, “You gotta bring that energy to be phenomenal! Pick your battles and drop the rest. I feel it.”
Yet many viewed Willow’s comments as a contradiction, pointing to one night that changed everything: her father’s 2022 Oscars confrontation with Chris Rock. During the ceremony, Smith walked onto the stage and slapped Rock after the comedian made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith.
“I don’t know. He starred in ‘Hitch’ and still physically assaulted a man on live television,” noted one person. Another asked, “What about the energy he bought after the slap??”
Smith won an Oscar that night for his lead role in “King Richard,” and later received a 10-year ban from all Academy events.
He described his experience starring in the 2022 historical drama “Emancipation” as “deeply dehumanizing,” calling it one of the most emotionally and physically taxing roles of his career.
In the film, the Oscar winner plays Peter, an enslaved man who escapes a Louisiana plantation after enduring brutal beatings.
In a “Red Table Talk” sit-down with his children Trey, 33, Jaden, 28, and Willow, he said, “You guys been around for most of my career. It’s like as the years have gone on, I’ve gotten more and more locked into these characters for longer periods of time.”
He described the weight of the film as emotionally, physically, and spiritually taxing.
Smith said he invited college students to watch the film and ask questions. One student, Devyn, asked how the role affected his mindset.
“I was getting called the n-word, you know, a hundred times a day by very good actors,” he responded. “You know, it’s rough. It twists your mind up. You have to be really careful.”
The actor recalls a moment when they put shackles on him, but later, when they proceeded to remove them, the key wouldn’t work. In that moment, he said his “heart jumps.”
“I haven’t been able to articulate why, but I felt embarrassed. I was embarrassed while I was standing there and I was waiting and it was emasculating, dehumanizing, all of that.”
In the same episode, Smith admitted that the only other instance where he completely lost his identity in a role was playing Paul in the 1993 film “Six Degrees of Separation.”
The comedy-drama follows a wealthy Manhattan couple — played by Stockard Channing and Donald Sutherland — whose lives are upended after Paul, a young man claiming to be the son of actor Sidney Poitier, charms and cons them.
In other interviews, Smith also confessed that his method acting went too far in that film, leading him to fall in love with Channing in real life because his character was in love with hers.
At the time of filming, Smith was newly married to Sheree Zampino. The couple had just welcomed their infant son, Trey. Smith and Zampino divorced in 1995 after three years of marriage.
In 1997, Smith married Jada Pinkett Smith, with whom he shares children Jaden and Willow.
Although the couple continued to appear publicly together, Pinkett Smith revealed in 2023 that they had been living separately since 2016.
In July, People reported that Pinkett Smith had moved back in with Smith about two years earlier, citing a source who said the couple had resumed sharing a home.
Insane how cinematic this moment is, genuinely incredible editing and shot composition . The fact it was all done live is a miracle pic.twitter.com/mKxDlSACIg
— Punch Drunk Luke (@WwwLukethoughts) September 23, 2026
