Will Smith is returning to the big screen this year in the Allan Loeb film, Collateral Beauty, about a New York City man who must find a way to deal with a tragedy by communicating and making peace with the concepts of love, time and death.
Co-starring alongside Smith are, Helen Mirren, Jacob Latimore, Edward Norton, Keira Knightley, Naomie Harris and Kate Winslet. The cast (minus Winslet and Knightley) and producers sat with members of the press at New York City’s Crosby Street Hotel to discuss the film which opens in theaters nationwide on December 16th
What was the appeal here that made you say I have to do Howard and not Bridget?For Helen you’re really only the light comical relief in this very serious movie and you get to send up your profession.I just wondered if that humor was in the script or is it something you brought in her wanting to do more and did you base her on anyone specifically?
Will Smith: When I first read the screenplay it spoke to that Christmas flavor that I remember growing up, It’s a Wonderful Life and those types of films that are right on the edge of fantasy with that Christmas magic to it, right on the edge but dealing with things that are deeply and powerfully real and human. There was a timing in my life also with this film with the pursuit of the ideas. I loved that this was a guy who had the world on a string. Everything was perfect, he had it. He had life figured out. Then suffered a loss and had to make his way back to even believing that there was a possibility to have joy again. So I loved that journey, it was really close to.. Howard thinks about life a lot of the ways I think about life, and how he had to move from his mind he had to move from thinking that he could solve all the issues of life with his mind into accepting that there is a certain amount of bleeding that you have to do in order to be able to purge and cleanse yourself to be able to experience joy. The pain and joy and growth are all inexorably bound.
Helen Mirren: I just think because I was (playing) personifying death I just wanted it to be as alive as possible. I might have went in through that whether it came out funny or not had nothing to do with me really. I was just trying to be as alive as possible. And I did sort of David and I had big discussions about who this person would be and I think Allan and David had visualized her as this sort of East Village sort of New York actress. It’s not me exactly but it’s who I might have been if I hadn’t been as successful as I luckily was. I probably would be absolutely Bridget because I started my career in theater. I was incredibly serious about theater, I was incredibly dedicated. So I think if my life hadn’t taken a different path I think I would probably be Bridget.
We’ve all experienced some sort of loss in life. Prior to the film and now that the film is over, would you change anything in regards to future loss?
Will Smith: I think my experience during the time of working on the film my father was diagnosed with cancer and he was given six weeks during the process of working on the film. So it was a truly beautiful time for he and I as I was in Howard’s mind studying and reading all of the different religious basis for being able to find an answer for how we recover from this kind of loss of sharing that with my father through the experience. Everything from the Tibetan book of the dead to Elizabeth Kübler Ross everything that you possibly do to deal with the inevitable pain of death, I was able to do that as Howard but also be able to share and work on that with my father. So that the idea of that loss and that type of pain this movie this film and these ideas have changed me forever. So it’s the ultimate human difficulty how do you deal with death and loss. It was the perfect life part confluence. It was the ultimate art and life confluence. For me I hope that people can feel the depth and power of what’s going on in the film. There’s the thing for example in my mind I had decided that Howard had moved to Buddhism from when the movie starts that he is now trying Buddhism and there’s even a shot that David put in that goes across the teachings of Buddha in the scene where he’s writing the letters. There’s a thing that the Buddhist monks do the mandalas where they for twelve, fourteen hours a day they do these beautiful sand mandalas right, and they work all day and they slave all day and they stand up and they look at it for 60 seconds and wipe it away. These beautiful pieces of art and they just destroy it for the practice of impermanence. So that’s sort of what the idea I was working on with the dominoes, that Howard works and he creates these dominoes these beautiful domino mazes tips them and turns and doesn’t even watch them fall as the practice of impermanence and letting things go. I am forever changed from working on Collateral Beauty.
Edward Norton: I was just gonna say, everything Will said me too. (laughter)
To follow up with that, Naomi how did you relate to your character?
Naomie Harris: Well I haven’t really suffered a death in my life. I think that’s one of the things that attracted me to the piece, because I think death is such an important part of life. I think only when you come to terms with death can you appreciate the fragility of life and sort of beauty of life. And so I was interested in going on a journey that would explore that. We were really lucky both Will and I that one of the ladies she’s actually Will’s wardrobe assistant Milay, she had lost her daughter and she was able to share that story of losing this little child with us and it was so traumatic to hear about the suffering that she had been through. But it was also incredible to see that she had found the collateral beauty in that and how it had changed her life and in some respects for the better. She said she saw the beauty of life in so much more of a profound way that I don’t think I yet have not been able to see that beauty in life. That was a really wonderful journey, it really helped me grow, and so that’s what I took away from it.
Between love, death and time, what would torture you the most?
Will Smith: Nothing tortures me more than love. Nothing tortures me more than love. There’s nothing in life that I experience more pain around than love. Even in dealing with my father’s passing what it comes back to me and how I react to that is “Jada you not loving me enough”. Everything is about listen if we gonna die we need to spend more time together. The craving for love for me is far beyond the loss of death and far beyond the punishment of time.
There’s something extra special I think about magic in New York City, but this movie could have been done anywhere and been just as good. Why New York?
Edward Norton: When I watched the film, it struck me that New York’s chaos and density helps you believe that these things could be taking place. There needs to be a lot of distraction, it’s almost like a magic trick when people say you get someone to look over here and you get a guy in a gorilla suit comes on stage and sees it. You almost don’t believe they could pull this off on Howard if the chaos of the city.. if it was in some small town somewhere you would be like everybody would notice every piece of it all. New York has such a tumble to it that it lets you buy into the idea that something like this could be going on and you could be fooled by it.
Will Smith you come from a sort of bad boy image at least with your films which are classic, to more moving characters, very emotional very soft spoken like with this film. Do you see that transgression do you see yourself through the course of your career becoming closer to the more emotional roles, and would you be going that way for future roles? And for the producers if you can just comment on the timing of the movie. Would this movie be possible in the summer or given that it’s Christmas would people be more open to a film like this?
Will Smith: I think I’m just having more life experiences that are allowing me to be able to connect to different more deeper complex human emotions. As an artist I am my tool. My life experience is my well. As I have more life experiences. My daughter just turned 16. So I watched my 16 year old daughter drive away from the house with her driver’s license. That’s my youngest child is 16. So now I’m open to be able to deliver a unique and different textured performances of a father with a 16 year old daughter. As I’m growing older, I’ve been in the spotlight for 30 years, Jeff and I celebrated 30 year since our first record 1986. So I’ve been doing this for 30 years I was a kid so the things I was doing had a beautiful youthful exuberance to them that I try to maintain some piece of that. But the things that I think about and who I am and how I live on a daily basis is a little bit more complex than the Fresh Prince. I’m trying to be brave enough to not to cling backwards and to go bravely into the unknown potentially unaccepted. I want to be able to courageously go forward to find those new things and deliver new ideas.
Anthony Bregman: The story really isn’t a Christmas story exactly. But the holiday period is a time of both loneliness and magic, which really figured into the movie. It really is a time where people really kind of take stock of family and take stock of what is important to them, and that really figured into it. And I think besides thematically the holiday season presented for David a way to beautifully talk to visually about the magic in our lives with the way the beauty of the film is really in the lighting of the film and these little points of light that come from the decorations and there’s this elevated sense visually of what life can be which really matches what’s going on in the movie.
