will smith biography will

Will Smith transitioned from successful rapper to Hollywood A-lister, starring on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air before headlining such films as Independence Day , Men in Black , and Ali .

1968-present

Quick Facts

Music career, movies and tv shows, wife jada pinkett smith and children, who is will smith.

After Will Smith met Jeff Townes at age 16, the duo launched a highly successful rap career as DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. Smith starred on the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air for six seasons, before establishing himself as a Hollywood A-lister with Bad Boys (1995) and Independence Day (1996). He has since headlined such popular films as Men in Black (1997) and Hitch (2005) and earned Oscar nominations for Ali (2001) and The Pursuit of Happyness (2006). Smith also earned acclaim for Concussion (2015), before returning to action fare with Suicide Squad (2016).

FULL NAME: Willard Carroll Smith Jr. BORN: September 25, 1968 BIRTHPLACE: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania SPOUSE: Sheree Zampino (1992-1995) and Jada Pinkett Smith (1997-present; separated) CHILDREN: Trey, Jaden , and Willow ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Libra

Smith was born Willard Carroll Smith Jr. on September 25, 1968, in Philadelphia to mother Caroline, a school board employee, and father Willard C. Smith, a refrigeration company owner. His middle-class upbringing saw him attend the strict Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School, despite his family's observation of the Baptist faith. He went on to attend Overbrook High School.

His West Philadelphia neighborhood was a melting pot of cultures where Orthodox Jews co-existed with a large Muslim population. Smith was a good student whose charming personality and quick tongue were renowned for getting him out of trouble, a trait for which he soon gained the nickname "Prince.''

Smith began rapping at age 12, emulating heroes like Grandmaster Flash but tingeing his rhymes with a comedic element that would later become his trademark. At 16 Smith met future collaborator Jeff Townes at a party. The pair became friends, and the duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince was born.

As teens, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince began producing music but steered clear of the gangsta rap sound that was emerging from the West Coast by groups like N.W.A. The Fresh Prince rapped about teenage preoccupations in a clean, curse-free style that middle America found safe and entertaining. The pair's first single, "Girls Ain't Nothing But Trouble," was a hit in 1986. Their 1987 debut album, Rock the House , hit the Billboard Top 200, and made Smith a millionaire before the age of 18. The early success put any thoughts of attending college out of Smith's mind.

Early on, it was reported that Smith had turned down a scholarship to Boston's elite Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), but Smith later dispelled the rumor when he told an interviewer: "My mother, who worked for the School Board of Philadelphia, had a friend who was the admissions officer at MIT. I had pretty high SAT scores and they needed Black kids, so I probably could have gotten in. But I had no intention of going to college."

In 1988, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince continued their success with the album He's The DJ , I'm The Rapper . Featuring the radio-friendly singles "Parents Just Don't Understand," "Brand New Funk," and "Nightmare on My Street," the album won the first-ever Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance. It was followed in 1989 by And In This Corner..., which continued the pair's rise to stardom.

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

Two years later, Smith began his crossover into acting. Drawing on his experiences with fledgling stardom, NBC signed Smith to headline a sitcom about a street-smart kid from Philadelphia who moves in with stuffy relatives in the posh Los Angeles neighborhood of Bel-Air. Playing on his rapper persona, and at times featuring his friend Towne, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was a huge success that ran for six seasons.

Meanwhile, Smith and Towne continued producing music, their 1991 album Homebase producing the hits "Summertime" and "Ring My Bell." Their final album together, 1993's Code Red , was notable for "Boom! Shake the Room."

Where the Day Takes You and Six Degrees of Separation

While still making The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air , Smith began a second crossover into movies. Small roles in the drama Where The Day Takes You (1992) and the comedy Made In America (1993) were followed by a critically acclaimed lead in Six Degrees of Separation (1993). Holding his own alongside Donald Sutherland , Stockard Channing and Ian McKellen , Smith played a street-wise gay hustler who cons his way through elite circles.

Smith's first steps into superstardom came with his next film, Bad Boys (1995). The high-budget cop movie saw him team up with comic Martin Lawrence , breaking away from the Black-cop-white-cop formula that had been so successful for Beverly Hills Cop and the Lethal Weapon series. The two Black leads proved an instant success and Smith — playing the smooth lady killer to Lawrence's clown — was established as leading man material.

Independence Day

Smith next took on the epic sci-fi flick Independence Day (1996), a role that confirmed him as a major player in Hollywood and the go-to guy for summer blockbusters. He played a pilot leading the counterattack against invading alien forces, and his comedic talents effortlessly transformed into the pithy one-liners all action heroes need to be able to drop while dispatching their enemies.

Men in Black and Enemy of the State

Smith fought aliens again in his next blockbuster, the comic sci-fi action film, Men in Black (1997). Playing opposite Tommy Lee Jones , Smith chewed up the screen as the new recruit to Jones' old hand. Smith rapped the theme song, and its inclusion on his 1997 solo album, Big Willie Style, brought the multi-talented actor more success. Another blockbuster followed with the slick conspiracy thriller Enemy of the State (1998), which earned Smith an NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture.

Wild Wild West and The Legend of Bagger Vance

The string of hits came to an end in 1999 with Wild Wild West , a sci-fi cowboy Western co-starring Kevin Kline. Despite the film's lackluster box-office performance, the track Smith cut for the film became a hit on his 1999 album, Willennium . The golf movie The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) was his next big film, with Smith playing the caddie to Matt Damon 's out-of-sorts swinger.

Oscar Nomination for Ali

The 2001 biopic Ali , based on boxing legend Muhammad Ali , gave Smith the opportunity to regain his big-screen swagger. His turn as the charismatic boxing great saw Smith put in the performance of his life, training and disciplining himself to extraordinary lengths to do justice to the athleticism — and ego — of the titular character. The film underwhelmed at the box office despite a record-breaking opening day, but Smith's performance was strong enough to garner him his first Academy Award nomination.

Men in Black II , Bad Boys II , and I, Robot

A couple of sequels were next, with Smith reprising his roles in Men In Black II (2002) and Bad Boys II (2003). Neither was a flop, but neither matched the impressive box-office take of its predecessor. Staying with the sci-fi action theme, Smith moved on to I, Robot in 2004. The Isaac Asimov adaptation featured Smith as a futuristic cop investigating a murder by a robot and then battling a robot insurgency. The film performed well, grossing more than $144 million domestically.

Hitch and The Pursuit of Happyness

Smith's smooth-talking charmer persona was put to use in the 2005 romantic comedy Hitch, playing a dating consultant who helps luckless guys with their romantic moves. Smith also penned the theme song and included it on his 2005 album, Lost and Found . Hitch was a massive success, and it was followed in 2006 by another critical and financial hit, The Pursuit of Happyness (2006). Starring alongside his real-life son Jaden , Smith captivated audiences with the story of a single father who has to build a life from scratch. He received his second Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his performance.

I Am Legend

In 2007, Smith starred in I Am Legend , a remake of the Charlton Heston film Omega Man , in which he battled bloodthirsty vampires. The film became a national and international hit.

Hancock , Seven Pounds , and Men in Black 3

Smith then took on the dual role of actor and producer for Hancock (2008), in which he played an alcoholic anti-superhero, and for Seven Pounds (2008), about a man who sets out to change the lives of seven people. He also helped produce two more films released that year, Lakeview Terrace and The Secret Life of Bees .

After a hiatus, Smith returned to the big screen in 2012 with Men in Black 3 , followed by a turn as a military commander in the critically panned M. Night Shyamalan sci-fi flick After Earth , which co-starred Smith's son Jaden. He then made a cameo as Lucifer in the film Winter's Tale (2014).

Focus , Concussion , and Suicide Squad

Smith's next leading role came with the 2015 heist caper Focus , co-starring Margot Robbie . Later in the year, he starred as Dr. Bennet Omalu in the sports drama Concussion , earning a Golden Globe nomination for his role as a doctor fighting to raise awareness about head trauma in NFL players.

In 2016, Smith starred in the DC Comics blockbuster hit Suicide Squad , which became his most successful film since 1996's Independence Day . The same year, he also took on a more somber role as a father who loses his young daughter in the drama Collateral Beauty . Although a follow-up endeavor, Bright (2017), was thoroughly panned by critics, audiences responded more positively to the urban fantasy crime flick.

Aladdin , Gemini Man , and Bad Boys for Life

In February 2019, Smith announced that he would not be returning for the Suicide Squad sequel. Around that time, a commercial during the Grammy Awards revealed him as a wisecracking Genie in Guy Ritchie's live-action adaptation of Disney's Aladdin , which went on to top $1 billion at the global box office. Next up was Ang Lee's Gemini Man , which had Smith pulling double duty — with help from digital technology — as a 50-year-old assassin assigned to kill a 23-year-old version of himself.

The A-lister closed out the year by voicing super agent Lance Sterling in the animated Spies in Disguise , alongside Tom Holland , before opening 2020 with a return to his successful cop-buddy franchise in Bad Boys for Life .

Smith has been married twice. His first marriage, to Sheree Zampino in 1992, lasted only three years but produced a son, Willard Smith III (b. 1992), also known as Trey. He has been married to actress Jada Pinkett Smith since 1997. The couple's son, Jaden , was born in 1998, and their daughter, Willow , was born in 2000.

Smith leans politically liberal and has made donations to the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama . Smith is a fan of chess and video games and is known to take his mother on vacation every year, usually to the Canyon Ranch spa in Tucson, Arizona.

• I want to represent the idea that you really can make what you want ... I believe I can create whatever I want to create.
• I want to do good. I want the world to be better because I was here.
• I have a great time with my life and I want to share it. I love living. I think that's infectious. It's something that you can't fake.
• Being realistic is the most commonly traveled road to mediocrity. Why would you be realistic?
• There's no easy way round it. Your talent is going to fail if you're not skilled.
• I've never really viewed myself as particularly talented. Where I excel is ridiculous, sickening work ethic. While the other guys sleeping, I'm working. While the other guy is eating, I'm working.
• The first step before anybody else in the world believes it is you have to believe it.
• There's no reason to have a plan B because it distracts from plan A.
• Don't chase people. Be yourself, do your own thing and work hard.
• I'm a student of patterns, at heart I'm a physicist.

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Will Hardcover – November 9, 2021

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• Print length 432 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Penguin Press
• Publication date November 9, 2021
• Dimensions 6.37 x 1.34 x 9.53 inches
• ISBN-10 1984877925
• ISBN-13 978-1984877925
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I've always thought of myself as a coward. Most of my memories of my childhood involve me being afraid in some way-afraid of other kids, afraid of being hurt or embarrassed, afraid of being seen as weak.

But mostly, I was afraid of my father.

When I was nine years old, I watched my father punch my mother in the side of her head so hard that she collapsed. I saw her spit blood. That moment in that bedroom, probably more than any other moment in my life, has defined who I am today.

Within everything that I have done since then--the awards and accolades, the spotlights and the attention, the characters and the laughs--there has been a subtle string of apologies to my mother for my inaction that day. For failing her in that moment. For failing to stand up to my father.

For being a coward.

What you have come to understand as "Will Smith," the alien-annihilating MC, the bigger-than-life movie star, is largely a construction--a carefully crafted and honed character--designed to protect myself. To hide myself from the world. To hide the coward.

My father was my hero.

His name was Willard Carroll Smith, but we all called him "Daddio."

Daddio was born and raised in the rough and rugged streets of North Philadelphia in the 1940s. Daddio's father, my grandfather, owned a small fish market. He had to work from 4:00 a.m. until late at night every day. My grandmother was a nurse and often worked the night shift at the hospital. As a result, Daddio spent much of his childhood alone and unsupervised. The North Philly streets had a way of hardening you. You either crystallized into a mean motherfucker, or the hood broke you. Daddio was smoking cigarettes by eleven and drinking by the age of fourteen. My father developed a defiant and aggressive attitude that would continue all his life.

When he was fourteen, my grandparents, fearing where his life was headed, scraped together what money they could and sent him to an agricultural boarding school in the Pennsylvania countryside where kids learned farming techniques and basic handyman work. It was a strict and traditional place, and by sending him there they hoped to introduce some much-needed structure and discipline into his life.

But nobody was going to tell my father what to do. Other than working on some of the tractor engines, he couldn't be bothered with what he described as "that hillbilly bullshit." He would skip classes; he smoked cigarettes and kept on drinking.

At age sixteen, Daddio was done with this school and ready to go home. He decided to get himself kicked out. He started disrupting classes, ignoring all the rules, and antagonizing anyone in a position of authority. But when the administrators tried to send him home, my grandparents refused to take him back. "We paid for the full year," they said. "You're getting paid to deal with him, so deal with him." Daddio was stuck.

But Daddio was a hustler--he was going to find his way out: On his seventeenth birthday, he snuck off campus, walked half a dozen miles to the nearest recruiting office, and enlisted in the United States Air Force. This was classic Daddio--he was so hell-bent on defying authority and rebelling against both his parents and the school that he jumped out of the frying pan of an agricultural boarding school and directly into the fire of the United States military. He ended up in the exact structure and discipline my grandparents had desperately hoped to instill in him.

But as it turned out, Daddio loved it. It was in the military that he discovered the transformative power of order and discipline, two values that he came to worship as the guardrails protecting him from the worst parts of himself. Wake up at 4:00 a.m., train all morning, work all day, study all night--he found his lane. He discovered that he could outlast anybody, and he began to take pride in that. It was another aspect of his defiant attitude. Nobody could force him to wake up with a bugle horn because he already was up.

With his passionate work ethic, boundless energy, and undeniable intelligence, he should have quickly risen through the ranks. But there were two issues.

First, he had a brutal temper, and superior officer or not, if you were wrong, he wasn't doing it. Second, his drinking. Let me tell you, my father was one of the smartest people I've ever known, but when he was angry, or drunk, he became an idiot. He would break his own rules, subvert his own objectives, destroy his own things.

After about two years in the military, this self-destructive streak peeked through the veil of order and ended his service career.

One night, he and the guys from his platoon were gambling. (Daddio was sweet with a pair of dice.) He took those dudes for almost a thousand dollars. Once he'd stashed the winnings in his footlocker, he headed out to get something to eat, but when he returned from the mess hall, the guys had stolen back the money. In his fury, Daddio drank himself into a frenzy, took out his service pistol, and lit up the barracks. Nobody got hurt, but it was enough for the air force to show him the door. He was fortunate that he wasn't court-martialed--instead, they just discharged him, put him on a bus, and invited him to never come back.

This was a tension that ripped through my father's entire life--he demanded such rigid perfection from himself and the people around him, yet after too many drinks, or if he snapped, he would burn everything to the ground.

Daddio moved back to Philly. Undaunted, he took a job in a steel mill while putting himself through night school. He studied engineering and showed a real aptitude for both electricity and the science of refrigeration. One day, after being passed over for a promotion at the steel mill for the third or fourth time because of his race, he simply walked out the door and never went back. He knew refrigeration, so he decided heÕd start his own business.

Daddio was brilliant. Like many sons, I worshipped my father, but he also terrified me. He was one of the greatest blessings of my life, and also one of my greatest sources of pain.

My mom was born Carolyn Elaine Bright. She's a Pittsburgh girl, born and raised in Homewood, a predominantly Black neighborhood on the east side of the city.

My mother, a.k.a. "Mom-Mom," is eloquent and sophisticated. She has a petite frame, with long, elegant, piano player's fingers, perfectly sized to deliver a gorgeous rendition of "Für Elise." She had been a standout student at Westinghouse High School and was one of the first Black women to ever study at Carnegie Mellon University. Mom-Mom would often say that knowledge was the only thing that the world couldn't take away from you. And she only cared about three things: education, education, and education.

She loved business-banking, finance, sales, contracts. Mom-Mom always had her own money.

Life moved quickly for my mother, as it often did in those days. She married her first husband at the age of twenty, had a daughter, and was divorced less than three years later. By twenty-five, as a struggling single mom, she was probably one of the most educated African American women in all of Pittsburgh, yet she was still working jobs beneath the level of her true potential. Feeling trapped and craving bigger opportunities, she packed up the baby and moved to live with her mother--my grandmother Gigi--in Philadelphia.

My parents met in the summer of 1964. Mom-Mom was working as a notary in the Fidelity Bank in Philly. She was rolling out with some girlfriends to a party, and one of them told her she just had to meet this man. His name was Will Smith.

In many ways, Mom-Mom is the total opposite of my father. Whereas Daddio was the boisterous, charismatic center of attention, Mom-Mom is quiet and reserved; not because she's shy or intimidated, but because she "only speaks when it improves on silence." She loves words and always chooses them carefully--she speaks with an academic sophistication. Daddio, on the other hand, was loud, spewing the lingo of a 1950s North Philly hood rat. He loved the poetry of his profanity--I once heard him call a man a "dirty rat, cocksuckin', low-down, mangy pig fucker."

Mom-Mom doesn't use profanity.

It's important to note here, that back in the day, Daddio was the man. Six foot two, smart, good-looking, the proud owner of a fire-engine-red convertible Pontiac. He was funny; he could sing; he could play the guitar. He could lock people into him--he was always the dude standing in the middle of a party with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, a master storyteller who could keep a room buzzing.

When Mom-Mom first saw Daddio, he reminded her of a tall Marvin Gaye. He was savvy and knew his way around people. He could talk his way into a party, get free drinks and a table near the front. Daddio had a way of moving through the world like everything was under control, it was all going to be fine. This was comforting for my mom.

My mother's memory of their first days together is just a blurred montage of restaurants and clubs, strung together by a stream of jokes and laughter. Mom-Mom couldn't get over how funny he was, but most important to her, he was ambitious. He had his own business. He had employees. He wanted to work in white neighborhoods, with white people working for him.

Daddio was going places.

My father wasn't used to interacting with women of my mother's educational accomplishments--Man, this bird's smart as a muthafucka, he thought. Daddio was the street smarts to Mom-Mom's book smarts.

My parents had a lot in common, too. They both had a passion for music. They loved jazz, blues, and, later, funk and R&B. They lived through the glorious Motown days and spent much of it dancing together in musty basement parties and jazz clubs.

But there were strange commonalities, as well--the stuff that startles you and makes you think, This must be God's plan. Both of my parents had mothers who were nurses who worked night shifts (one was Helen; one was Ellen). Both of my parents had short-lived marriages in their early twenties, and they both had daughters. And in perhaps the strangest coincidence, they had both named their daughters Pam.

My parents got married in a small ceremony at Niagara Falls in 1966. Soon after, Daddio moved into my grandmother Gigi's house, on North Fifty-Fourth Street in West Philadelphia. It wasn't long before they combined their very different strengths and talents into an effective team. Mom-Mom ran Daddio's office: payroll, contracts, taxes, accounting, permits. And Daddio got to do what he did best: work hard and make money.

Both of my parents would later speak fondly of those early years. They were young, in love, ambitious, and they were movin' on up.

My full name is Willard Carroll Smith II--not Junior. Daddio would always correct people: 'Hey! He ain't no mutherfuckin' Junior.' He felt like calling me 'Junior' diminished both of us.

I was born on September 25, 1968. My mom says that from the moment I showed up, I was a talker. Always smiling, yapping, and babbling away, content to just be making noise.

Gigi worked the graveyard shift at Jefferson Hospital in Center City, Philadelphia, so she'd take care of me in the mornings while my parents were at work. Her house had a huge porch, which served as my front-row seat to the drama of North Fifty-Fourth Street, and a stage on which I could join in the theatrics. She'd prop me up on that porch and watch me jibber-jabber with anybody and everybody who walked by. Even at that age, I loved having an audience.

My twin brother and sister, Harry and Ellen, were born on May 5, 1971. And counting Mom-Mom's daughter Pam, just like that there would now be six of us under one roof.

Fortunately, the North Philly entrepreneur in Daddio was alive and well. He had gone from repairing refrigerators to installing and maintaining refrigerator and freezer cases in major supermarkets. Business was taking off-he was expanding beyond Philly into the surrounding suburbs. He started to build a fleet of trucks and hire a crew of refrigeration and electrical technicians. He also rented a small building to use as his base of operations.

Daddio was always hustling. I remember one particularly frigid winter, cash got tight, so he taught himself how to repair kerosene heaters. They were all the rage in Philly at the time. He put up a bunch of flyers, and people started bringing him their broken heaters. Daddio figured out that once he'd fixed a heater, he'd have to "test" it for a couple days, to make sure it was working. At any given time, he'd have ten or twelve kerosene heaters "being tested for the quality of his work." That many heaters will easily warm a West Philly row home, even in the coldest of winters. So Daddio canceled our gas service, kept his family warm and toasty for the winter, and got paid for it.

By the time that I was two years old, Daddio had established his business firmly enough to buy a house about a mile away from Gigi in a middle-class neighborhood of West Philly called Wynnefield.

I grew up at 5943 Woodcrest Avenue on a tree-lined street of thirty grayish-red brick row homes, all connected. The physical proximity of the houses cultivated a strong sense of community. (It also meant that if your neighbor had roaches, you had roaches, too.) Everybody knew everybody. For a young Black family in the 1970s, this was as American dream as you could get.

Across the street was Beeber Middle School and its majestic concrete playground. Basketball, baseball, girls jumpin' double Dutch. The ol' heads slap-boxing. And the second the summer hit, pop goes the water plug. Our neighborhood was thick with kids, and we were always outside playing. Living within one hundred yards of my house, there were almost forty kids my age. Stacey, David, Reecie, Cheri, Michael, Teddy, Shawn, Omarr, and on and on--and that's not even counting their siblings, or the kids on the next blocks. (Stacey Brooks is my oldest friend in the world. We met the day my family moved to Woodcrest. I was two, she was three. Our mothers pushed our strollers up to each other and introduced us. I was in love with her by the time I was seven. But she was in love with David Brandon. He was nine.)

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Press (November 9, 2021)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1984877925
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1984877925
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.53 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.37 x 1.34 x 9.53 inches
• #100 in Black & African American Biographies
• #256 in Actor & Entertainer Biographies
• #827 in Memoirs (Books)

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About the author

Mark manson.

Mark Manson is the #1 New York Times Bestselling author of Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life, the mega-bestseller that reached #1 in fourteen different countries. Mark’s books have been translated into more than 50 languages and have sold over 12 million copies worldwide.

Mark runs one of the largest personal growth websites in the world, MarkManson.net, a blog with more than two million monthly readers and half a million subscribers. His writing is often described as ‘self-help for people who hate self-help’ — a no-BS brand of life advice and cultural commentary that has struck a chord with people around the globe. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, TIME Magazine, Forbes, Vice, CNN, and Vox, among many others. He currently lives in New York City.

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The Great Performers Issue

Will Smith Is Done Trying to Be Perfect

“Strategizing about being the biggest movie star in the world — that is all completely over. ”

Will Smith Credit... Ruven Afanador for The New York Times

Supported by

By David Marchese

• Dec. 9, 2021

Will Smith’s superpower as a performer — as a movie star — has always been his radiating charisma. Who else could have credibly portrayed Muhammad Ali, the most charismatic man ever? In “King Richard,” Smith transmutes that gift into something subtler but just as powerful in his portrayal of Richard Williams, father of Venus and Serena. (Smith, as he was eager to acknowledge, was supported in the film by Saniyya Sidney as Venus, Demi Singleton as Serena and Aunjanue Ellis as the girls’ mother and Williams’s wife at the time, Oracene Price.) Richard Williams, as embodied by Smith, is a man who has been physically bowed but not beaten. He has a limp from a racist attack as a child; his carriage is tense, a little unsure, as if always on alert for a sucker punch. He’s someone who has spent time beneath the underdog. And yet when it comes to Williams’s daughters and his dreams for them of tennis greatness, Smith invests his character with his trademark on-screen self-assurance. That Smith, who is 53 and who this autumn published a searching memoir, “Will,” was able to express those disparate traits so effectively is something he attributes to the work, precipitated by that book, that he has lately put into himself. “I wouldn’t have been able to play Richard Williams in this way,” Smith says, “before I had examined my life and understood so many aspects of my childhood and how that affected the decisions I made as a parent.”

There’s a key scene in “King Richard” in which Richard Williams talks about getting beaten up by a gang of white men as a child and seeing his father run away rather than help him. Not wanting to repeat that act of cowardice is ostensibly what drove his behavior toward his daughters. In your book, you write about seeing your dad hit your mom and how the cowardice that you felt for not intervening subsequently drove your own behaviors. When it came time to play Richard Williams, had you made any links between those situations? Absolutely. As an actor, you’re trying to find the aspects of the character that you most innately understand. So I could relate to Richard Williams similarly as I related to my father. I could relate to both their senses of disrespect. They felt unsupported and disrespected, and that was central for both of them. I started finding all those parallels, and also what happened is I got better as an actor during that time. I was organizing my memoir while I was working on “King Richard.” These two things have gone together. My ability as an actor expanded in the last 18 months. It’s one of the most exponential jumps in emotional comprehension that I’ve ever had.

Good acting can be such an intangible thing. What are you looking at as evidence of improvement? At the core, acting is what can you comprehend emotionally. And when you comprehend it emotionally, do you understand it enough to feel it and create interesting behavior around it? So something like Richard Williams’s walk: Now, you can mimic someone’s walk and look authentic. It’s a completely different thing when you know why the person is hunching over versus the stand-up-comedian version of it just mimicking it. Understanding that was the leap that happened: When you know why Richard Williams’s left leg hurts, what happened with the spike that got driven through it, that, as an actor, is the 90 percent of the iceberg that’s below the surface. When you’ve programmed it deeply, those things have corresponding vibrations for the audience that they don’t even realize.

What does your walk say about you? Ha! I guess if you were to psychoanalyze my walk from eight years ago, it’d be two things: My walk is really fast, and it’s high. I’m trying to create a joyful persona, and it’s because a long time ago I realized how you enter a space is going to determine how the space reacts to you. So my walk is joyful, but it’s also somewhat performative and pre-emptive. It’s like, I don’t want somebody to feel like they have to punch me in my face. I want to walk into a room and get as many friends as quickly as possible.

You said “eight years ago.” Does your walk say something different now? At this point in my life, I’m comfortable in my body. I’m OK with things not being perfect. I don’t have to look right. My mind isn’t drifting to what people are thinking when I walk in anymore. It’s much less performative and conscious.

Being a parent and a husband involves its own kind of performance. How did you think about those identities for Richard Williams, and how might they be different from how you, Will Smith, perform them? Richard Williams wants to gain respect, but he’s not trying to gain approval. There was a part of me, when I started, that desperately craved the approval of the world. That bleeds into everything. I wanted my children to align themselves to obtain the approval of the world. Richard Williams: very different. He was training his kids that they would most likely be getting brutalized by the world, and you don’t need their approval, but you’re going to have their respect. Which made him much more insular, and his push for the security of the family was of a higher value than the presentation of the family to the world. That was a serious difference between our parenting.

Throughout your career, you’ve been strategic about your choice of roles. For a long time you picked what you were doing based on the goal of wanting to be the biggest movie star in the world. What’s your plan now? And how did “King Richard” fit into it? Strategizing about being the biggest movie star in the world — that is all completely over. I realized that in order to enjoy my time here and in order to be helpful, it’s much more about self-examination. I want to take roles where I get to look at myself, where I get to look at my family, I get to look at ideas that are important to me. Everything in my life is more centered on spiritual growth and elevation. So, for example, one of the most important things to me during this process is, I want to make sure that Aunjanue Ellis and Saniyya and Demi are elevated and the world sees their work. I’m not looking for people to clap for me. I have two young actresses that this is their first time around on this level. I want them to feel loved and protected. I want Aunjanue to get her flowers. That is where my attention is in this process versus my attention being on box office or awards. I have as close to zero self-interest in that area as could possibly be.

What was the idea that Richard Williams represented that was important to you? Aunjanue referred to Richard and Oracene: She said that they were co-conspirators in this crazy dream. To me, everybody wants to have a crazy dream. You have to have fun with the absolute insanity of what you want to create in your life, unify your family around it and go for it. That’s the fun of life. We can’t all expect to hit it how the Williams family hit it, but I’m loving shining light on the idea of a family going for it.

You’ve also got a new Disney+ documentary series about the planet Earth. What’s an idea from that series that’s got you jazzed? I’m starting to see how science and spirituality are kind of the same thing. Religion and science, definitely at a subatomic level — that is all the definition of God, right? Everybody’s looking for the same thing. I grew up in a very religious household; my grandmother was all the way Jesus’ homegirl. My mind has always been scientific. I’m starting to see how those things fuse together. When I go and stand next to a volcano and I feel the pounding of that bass shaking my body — the fear that I feel and the awe of nature is deeply spiritual. The exploration for me is relating to nature scientifically but also, like with the volcano, spiritually.

You sound so intentional about everything. Do you ever do stuff just for fun? Almost never. It might be something I’ll have to start to let go of. I’ve been letting go of outcomes. I used to be wildly goal- and target-oriented. But my intention is still really firm. My life is pretty structured. I’m always up from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. reading and meditating on specific things or dreams and ideas that I want to put into the world. I’m very organized in that way. I guess the illusion of control settles my mind. I hope.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

David Marchese is a staff writer for the magazine and the columnist for Talk. Recently he interviewed Brian Cox about the filthy rich, Dr. Becky about the ultimate goal of parenting and Tiffany Haddish about God’s sense of humor.

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What People Are Saying

Praise for ‘will’.

Many people can live a really fantastic life. Many people can write a great book. There are few people I think who can translate a fantastic life into a fantastic book…. It’s raw… one of the most anticipated yet unexpected memoirs that has ever come out.

It shows every high, every low, and the sheer will it took you to become who you are… I love the book. It’s fantastic.

This book doesn’t waste any time… Like a lot of families, mine included, we talk about nothing. You took the carpet, you shook it, you beat it with a broom, you let it all out. … The book is so good.

Will is not just a gift for the reader but an absolutely entertaining treat as well… It’s filled with laugh out loud, nostalgic references alongside poignant, powerful, relatable life and career lessons. … While we often think of leaders as successful, powerful… and oftentimes rich, Smith reminds us that the best leaders are really vulnerable, relatable and teachable.

Will Smith isn’t holding back in his bravely inspiring new memoir… An ultimately heartwarming read, Will provides a humane glimpse of the man behind the actor, producer and musician, as he bares all his insecurities and trauma.

The real Smith, the one that yells, cries, experiences heartbreak, is much more interesting. Early on, his act gives way to images of unhealthy relationship patterns marked by people pleasing and insecurity. Elsewhere, Will rewards music fans with memories of hip-hop’s early days, when getting a song played on the radio was a crowning achievement and selling rap albums was almost inconceivable.

About the Book

One of the most dynamic and globally recognized entertainment forces of our time opens up fully about his life, in a brave and inspiring book that traces his learning curve to a place where outer success, inner happiness, and human connection are aligned.

Along the way, Will tells the story in full of one of the most amazing rides through the worlds of music and film that anyone has ever had. Will Smith’s transformation from a fearful child in a tense West Philadelphia home to one of the biggest pop stars of his era and then one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood history, with a string of box office successes that will likely never be broken, is an epic tale of inner transformation and outer triumph, and Will tells it astonishingly well. But it’s only half the story.

Will Smith thought, with good reason, that he had won at life: not only was his own success unparalleled, his whole family was at the pinnacle of the entertainment world. Only they didn’t see it that way: they felt more like star performers in his circus, a seven-days-a-week job they hadn’t signed up for. It turned out Will Smith’s education wasn’t nearly over.

This memoir is the product of a profound journey of self-knowledge, a reckoning with all that your will can get you and all that it can leave behind. Written with the help of Mark Manson, author of the multi-million-copy bestseller The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck , Will is the story of how one exceptional man mastered his own emotions, written in a way that can help everyone else do the same.

Few of us will know the pressure of performing on the world’s biggest stages for the highest of stakes, but we can all understand that the fuel that works for one stage of our journey might have to be changed if we want to make it all the way home. The combination of genuine wisdom of universal value and a life story that is preposterously entertaining, even astonishing, puts Will the book, like its author, in a category by itself.

International Editions

The book has been translated into 50 different languages. Many are listed below. Click to scroll to the English editions or the foreign translations .

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MIT Black History

Will smith, 1986.

Will Smith in science class at Overbrook High School in Philadelphia, PA, 1986.

Willard “Will” Carroll Smith, Jr.  is an American actor, producer, rapper and songwriter. He graduated with the class of 1986 from Overbrook High School in Philadelphia, PA. Smith's break-out role in the late-1980s hit television show  The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air  led to a successful career in Hollywood. 

Smith was born in West Philadelphia, the son of Caroline (Bright), a Philadelphia school board administrator, and Willard Carroll Smith, Sr., a refrigeration engineer...Though widely reported, it is untrue that Smith turned down a scholarship to attend [MIT]; he never applied to college because he "wanted to rap." Smith says he was admitted to a "pre-engineering [summer] program" at MIT for high school students, but he did not attend. According to Smith, "My mother, who worked for the School Board of Philadelphia, had a friend who was the admissions officer at MIT. I had pretty high SAT scores and they needed black kids, so I probably could have gotten in. But I had no intention of going to college." IMDb  [Internet Movie Database]

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Will Smith Biography

actor; musician Born: 9/25/1968 Birthplace: Philadelphia

Smith got his start in show business as half of the Grammy Award-winning rap duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. An auspicious acting debut in television's Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990–96) led to an equally successful movie career, including leading roles in the blockbusters Independence Day (1996), Men in Black (1997) and Men in Black II (2002), Enemy of the State (1998), Wild Wild West (1999), The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), Ali (2001), and Hitch (2005). He got critical acclaim for his role in 2006's The Pursuit of Happyness in which his young son costarred. He released his first solo album Big Willie Style in 1997. He is married to actress Jada Pinkett-Smith .

Here are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about.

Will Smith (I)

IMDbPro Starmeter Top 500 220

• Contact info
• 96 wins & 186 nominations total

Will Smith Through the Years

Photos 1615

• Producer (1994-1996)
• 1995–1996 • 24 eps

• Robert Neville

• executive producer, producer
• Post-production
• executive producer
• In Development
• Pre-production
• In Production

• producer (p.g.a.)

• 50 episodes

• Mike Lowrey
• Nicky Barnes

• Richard Williams

• Lt. Mike Lowrey

• Lance (voice)

• Henry Brogan

• Special Appearance in 'The Jawaani Song' and 'Radha Teri Chunri''

• Will Smith (singing voice)

• created by ...
• 81 episodes
• In-development projects at IMDbPro

Personal details

• The Fresh Prince
• 6′ 2″ (1.88 m)
• September 25 , 1968
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
• Spouses Jada Pinkett Smith December 31, 1997 - present (separated, 2 children)
• Children Jaden Smith
• Parents Caroline Bright
• Relatives Pam Smith (Sibling)
• Other works Appeared in Diana King 's music video, "Shy guy".
• 1 Biographical Movie
• 3 Print Biographies
• 1 Portrayal
• 26 Interviews
• 48 Articles
• 15 Pictorials
• 49 Magazine Cover Photos

Did you know

• Trivia He has solved Rubik's cubes in both The Alma Matter (1993) and The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) . This is a real talent of his; he has shown on live TV that he can solve a Rubik's Cube in under 55 seconds.
• Quotes [on his first season of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990) ] "I was trying so hard. I would memorize the entire script, then I'd be lipping everybody's lines while they were talking. When I watch those episodes, it's disgusting. My performances were horrible."
• Trademarks Often plays a policeman or an agent
• Fresh Prince
• Salaries Emancipation ( 2022 ) $35,000,000

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‘Bad Boys 4’ Trailer: Will Smith and Martin Lawrence Are Back in Action in Explosive First Look at ‘Ride or Die’

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Sony Pictures has just released the trailer for “ Bad Boys 4,” starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence . The film’s official title is “Bad Boys: Ride or Die.”

This is the fourth film in the popular action-comedy franchise that debuted in 1995, when Smith and Lawrence first teamed up as Miami PD detectives Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett, who investigate illegal drug trading in Miami.

Sony also revealed that Tiffany Haddish has joined the cast of the film in an undisclosed role. Haddish has been close with the Smith family after co-starring with Will Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith in the 2017 hit “Girls Trip.”

As for this franchise, seventeen years separated the releases of “Bad Boys II” in 2003 and “Bad Boys for Life” in 2020, the latter of which came out in theaters just before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down exhibition and earned $426.5 million at the worldwide box office.

In January, Smith and Lawrence announced the fourth installment on social media by sharing a reunion video with the caption, “IT’S ABOUT THAT TIME!”

In “Bad Boys for Life,” Mike was on the hit list of a young man, Armando (Jacob Scipio), whose mother Isabel (Kate del Castillo) tasked him with murdering those responsible for the death of his father, a drug king pin. The third film leaves viewers with the revelation that Armando is actually Mike’s son, and a credits scene hints at father and son potentially working together in some capacity.

“Bad Boys 4” is set to be released in theaters June 7. Watch the trailer below.

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Joyner Lucas on dropping a new album, working with Will Smith and Mark Wahlberg

• Hip-hop artist Joyner Lucas spoke to Business Insider about his new album, "Not Now I'm Busy."
• Lucas detailed the making of the project, including tracks with Jelly Roll and the late DMX. 
• We also discussed his experience acting in films alongside Will Smith and Mark Wahlberg. 

Last week, I spoke to hip-hop artist Joyner Lucas ahead of the release of his second studio album, "Not Now I'm Busy."

The interview went down in a meeting room at the Manhattan office of The Orchard, the entertainment company that distributed Lucas' debut album, "ADHD," in 2020.

With his manager and business partner Dhruv Joshi, Lucas discussed the making of the new album, its featured appearances, and Lucas' path as an independent artist. 

We spoke at length on three tracks: The single "Best For Me," a meditation on supporting a loved one through a battle with addiction, featuring a hook from Jelly Roll; "Three Little Pigs," a " Children's Story "-like figuration of police brutality; and "I Didn't Go," which features the late DMX. 

We also got into Lucas' recent turn as a film actor, including his work alongside "older brother" figures Mark Wahlberg, in the 2023 Apple film "The Family Plan," and Will Smith, in the coming "Bad Boys 4" sequel. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

"ADHD," self-released debut album, went Gold. How did the strategy behind that inform this one?

Joyner Lucas: We honestly treated it differently. That was at a different time. Covid was happening. Because Covid was happening, everybody was in the house, you know what I'm saying? So, a lot of "ADHD" was rushed. Towards the end of it, it got rushed a little bit because I was prolonging it for so long.

Dhruv Joshi: A year and a half.

Lucas: A year and a half. And then when Covid happened, everybody was in the house just listening to music. So I knew it was time to drop.

'Cause it was March 2020?

Lucas: Yeah, it was right when it happened. We were stuck in the house, and it was like, "Yo, I gotta get this album out now because everybody in the house just listening to music. There's nothing else for people to do, but to listen to music. So, while I got people's attention, I gotta just drop this shit." So I finished it up, and I dropped it. And I mean, now, obviously, we're not in a pandemic anymore. And I'm in a different place in my life, you know what I mean? So, the project's really treated differently.

" Best For Me ." Seems cosmically timed to make some noise. How are you seeing that move so far, a few days out?

Lucas: It was a really amazing move. It couldn't have been a better move, you know? I love making music with Jelly. He's an amazing person, really dope guy to work with. I had a lot of fun doing that record, doing the music video and stuff. Again, it's a much-needed concept, and I think that that record's gonna help a lot of people. That's what I'm all about.

Rest in peace, DMX.

Lucas: Yessir.

Spiritual moment on this shit.

Lucas: Yep.

Moving. How did that come together?

Lucas: I got to spend some time with him. Great guy. Just something that I've been holding for a long time. Pause. And, you know, just felt like, wanted to put it on this album. You know, I got my brother Symba on there. And pieces just connected.

" Three Little Pigs ." Dope as hell. Shoutout Slick Rick.

Lucas: Yeah. Shoutout Slick Rick. For sure.

Is that along the lines of how you would frame that conversation with your kids? 'Cause it's a tough conversation.

Lucas: It is a very tough conversation. Yeah. I'm actually coming out with a "Three Little Pigs" book. Like ASAP. So I'll be showing them the "Three Little Pigs" book. That's how I would teach my kids about the Three Little Pigs, by showing them the book. That's just a real raw — pause — uncut conversation. And showing 'em the book, there's no curse words in there. Water guns. You know, it's very kid-friendly. But it's one of those things that when they get older, they'll see the correlation between pigs, police officers, you know what I mean? Maybe not even something they would understand now, you know, but it's like, they'll get the story at the very least. 

Look back on it when they're grown and say...

Lucas:  And say, "Oh shit, that's genius."

And a commercial product, like, it's about to be for sale, or just for the video?

Lucas: The book will be for sale.

That's dope.

Lucas: We should have it... When are we getting the first copy of it?

Joshi: Soon. I'm trying to get the press right now.

Lucas: 'Cause we need it for the video.

Joshi: Also, mobile app as well. Game. So, "Three Little Pigs" game. It's coming out.

That's cold.

Related stories

Joshi: A mobile app. Where the wolf is running, and the pigs chasing him. Just like "Subway Surfer."

You said on Twitter you gave yourself "until age 28."

Lucas: Yeah.

To get with this shit, for real. Uh, you gave yourself more grace as an actor. How's that transition been for you, to acting?

Lucas: It's pretty cool. It's dope. I feel like, what's interesting, though, is I didn't have to like get in the whole independent movie world and work my way up the ladder until I got into big movies. I started with movies that had $200 million budgets. I started in movies with Mark. I started in movies with Will. That to me is legendary. To start at the top, you know what I'm saying? So now, I'm gonna be picky with this shit right here.

That's the way to get into it, if you can. And, uh, what type of game has Will Smith imparted to you?

Lucas: What type of what?

What type of game, as an actor and rapper, has Will Smith imparted? In the time you've spent with him. Any advice he's given you.

Lucas: "Don't be afraid to fail," is one of his biggest things. I think he's really big on failing, and a lot of his advice is based off of mistakes that he made, through things that he doesn't want to see me do. He's really a mentor for me, for real. He's like an older brother. And that's how our relationship is. Every time I see him, he want to try to beat me up. [Laugh] . Lucas: Start punching me and shit. I swear. Joshi: First time they met, he like body-slammed him.

Lucas: First time I met, he body-slammed me. And now every time I see him, he always want to square up with me. I'm like, "Bro, why you always trying to beat me up, bro?" He was like, "I don't know, bro. Something about you." Joshi: Nah. He said, "Nobody can get out my grip."

Lucas: Pause.

Joshi: He grabbed him like this. [Grabs own wrist, to indicate how Smith grabbed Lucas' wrist] .

Lucas: Pause. C'mon.

Joshi: He was like, "Man, I can get out of that." And [Smith] was like, "No, you can't. There's no way." "Trust me. I can get out of it." Flipped him on his ass. It was crazy.

And Mark Wahlberg did you even crazier, when he threw a knife into your eye .

Lucas: Yeah. Mark Wahlberg is another great guy. Really like another older brother to me. You know, me and him, we have a really genuine friendship. We talk about everything. He wants me to be involved with as much things as possible as he has going on, down to the Municipal thing, movies. You know, I think he really is just excited that somebody's coming out from where we came from, that he can stand behind. Pause.

You said Google's fucking up your net worth, and they got mine fucked up too. You click on it, and it takes you to the IRS.

Joshi:  Oh wow. 

I'm joking. I'm joking.

Lucas: I had to pay the IRS $2 million. That was probably the most gut-wrenching feeling.

You did mention that on the track.

Lucas: It felt like I took $2 million, and I flushed it down the toilet and burned it. Thinking of all the things I could have did with that. I could have bought so many properties with that shit, bro. That shit crazy.

Let's set the record straight for Business Insider, though. You're doing all right. You're building wealth.

Lucas: I mean, I'm nowhere near where I know that I will be. But yeah, I'm great. I think even when I get to where I will be, there's still another benchmark, right? It's like you're never satisfied. No matter how much money you make, you're never gonna be satisfied. There was a time where, when we was on tour, and we was making $400 or $500 a show, at the time it was like, "Yo, if only we can make like a thousand a night. We'll be killing it. We could just do a show every day, that's $365,000." 

Joshi: There's a path.

Lucas: Right.

Joshi: There's a pathway to the money right now.

Lucas: And then it's like you're selling a little bit of merch, you know? And it's like, "Yo, if we can make this plus this, we doing like $1,500 a day, bro." We're geeking on the bus, like, "Yo, 15 a day . That's crazy."

Joshi: Do you know what though? I don't know if the excitement was the money part of it, or the fact that we're starting to see money come out of the music and the art. You see what I'm saying?

Building on it.

Joshi: Just the excitement of that like, "Holy shit, we've been doing this for free. Basically."

Lucas: And now we're starting to make money.

Joshi: And now it's making a little bit, and it was exciting. "Oh shit, we're making some."

That perpetuating income. The streams.

Lucas: Right. When you start making more money, then you got more responsibilities, right? Then you need more money. So it's really never enough, to be honest with you. You got billionaires right now that feel like they need to make more money, right? We counting they pockets. Like, "Damn, how you could have a billion dollars?" Like, "You know what I would do with a billion dollars?" Right? But if you think about a billionaire who has a billion dollars, think about all the responsibilities he has, and what his expenses are, right? So if he's like a billionaire, he probably got like $50 million in expenses a month, you know what I'm saying? Or at least $20 million a month in expenses or whatever, right? And that's crazy.

It's proportional. And you got a family to feed.

Lucas: Right. You got more responsibility. More money, more problems, more responsibilities. And it's really never enough.

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Will Smith Contract Extension Continues Dodgers' Wild Spending Spree

The Dodgers have spent more than $1.35 billion on contracts this offseason.

• Author: Ryan Phillips, Special to SI.com

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The Los Angeles Dodgers just keep on spending. On Wednesday, ESPN's Jeff Passan reported the franchise had agreed to a 10-year, $140 million contract extension with catcher Will Smith. The deal marks yet another massive contract the Dodgers have handed out since the end of the 2023 season. They are in the midst of a spending spree unlike anything baseball has ever seen.

Los Angeles selected Smith with the 32nd pick in the 2016 MLB Draft and he has developed into one of the best catchers in Major League Baseball. Since 2021, Smith leads all big league backstops in OPS (.822), and is second in slugging (.466), home runs (68) and WAR (11.8). He debuted in 2019, and since then he leads all qualifying catchers in wRC+ (128). Smith will turn 29 on Friday and was set to hit free agency after the 2025 season, so this deal makes sense for both sides.

Smith had a slightly down year by his standards in 2023. He slashed .261/.359/.438, posting a career-low OPS of .797. He hit 19 home runs and 76 RBI, with 63 walks against 89 strikeouts, but did tie his career high in WAR (4.1). Los Angeles has determined his bat is worth a long-term commitment.

The Dodgers shelled out an incredible amount of money this offseason. The big free agent deals went to Shohei Ohtani ($700 million), Yoshinobu Yamamoto ($325 million) and Teoscar Hernandez ($23.5 million). But they also re-signed Clayton Kershaw ($10 million), Jason Heyward ($9 million), and Joe Kelly ($8 million), while adding James Paxton ($7 million) and Kike Hernandez ($4 million). That's $1.087 billion just on free agents. Add Tyler Glasnow's $136.6 million contract extension to Smith's $140 million deal and you have $276.6 million spent on contract extensions. All told, Los Angeles has spent more than $1.35 billion in contracts over the past few months.

Smith's contract will move the Dodgers' competitive balance tax payroll to more than $326 million, which now ranks second-highest in baseball behind the New York Mets ($332.7 million). It will ensure a hefty luxury tax bill at the end of the season.

Smith is an excellent catcher and keeping him in the lineup for the next 10 years solidifies things down the middle for Los Angeles. With Smith, Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Yamamoto, Glasnow and Freddie Freeman all signed through 2027, the Dodgers have a wide open championship window. It'll cost them a ton of money, but will be worth every penny if their loaded roster lives up to expectations.

Ryan Phillips is a senior writer for The Big Lead.

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Harry Smith is retiring from NBC News and returning to Iowa

I owans won't have to say goodbye to veteran TV journalist Harry Smith as he retires from NBC. The reporter's next journey has him coming back to Iowa.

Smith's final segment aired during the NBC Nightly News on Thursday. He chatted after with anchor Lester Holt and thanked viewers.

"I have nothing but gratitude," Smith said. "Every time I would always come on this show, I was always welcomed so generously. I've had just this unbelievable array of phenomenal experiences since coming to NBC, and so I'm really full of nothing but gratitude. Every time I've come on, everyone would drop their phones, pay attention to the story and then respond."

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Who is Harry Smith?

Smith is regarded as one of television's "most distinguished journalists" and has served as a news anchor for more than 30 years.

Smith started at NBC in 2011 after hosting morning shows on CBS News for 17 years. Smith got his start in broadcast at Denver stations KHOW and KIMN. He also worked for Denver's public television station. He joined CBS News in 1986 and became a correspondent in 1987, according to his biography on NBC News' website .

During his time with NBC, Smith traveled around the world to tell the stories of real-life people in Chile, Angola and more, according to an interview on the "Today" show . Throughout his career, Smith interviewed schoolchildren, Auschwitz survivors, civil rights pioneers and World War II heroes.

What are Harry Smith's Iowa roots?

Smith was born in Lansing, Illinois outside of Chicago. He came to Iowa for college and graduated with a B.A. degree in communications and theater from Central College in Pella.

Where is Harry Smith going after retirement from NBC?

As part of his retirement announcement from NBC, Smith also shared he will begin teaching at his alma mater. Smith will start in his new role in the fall. He will teach a class on curiosity at Central College.

How did the 'Today' show crew respond to Harry Smith's retirement?

"We are all better (because of) you, as are our viewers," Al Roker said.

"Harry, you have to write," Savannah Guthrie said. "It's your mission, it's your gift. You're a wonderful colleague. We love you, we will miss you every single day, and you better keep in touch."

Kate Kealey is a general assignment reporter for the Register. Reach her at  [email protected]  or follow her on Twitter at @ Kkealey17 .

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Harry Smith is retiring from NBC News and returning to Iowa