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Ali
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2
Q:
I can understand the intimidation. Did it make you think 'mmm, perhaps
not me'?
Smith: I felt physically perfect to tell the Muhammad Ali story. I felt
that I could put the weight on, and that I could look like him. I felt
that I could physically become Muhammad Ali, and I felt spiritually akin
to his transformation from being in a place where he believed in God through
a man and elevated himself to an individual one-on-one relationship with
God. So I can relate to that transformation. I can relate to that spiritual
space and I have always felt not unlike Muhammad Ali in the simplicity
of his spiritual beliefs. But at the same time I was terrified by the
prospect of being the guy that messed up the Muhammad Ali story. They
would say 'Independence Day', that was good! 'Men in Black', that was
cool. But that's the dude that messed up the Muhammad Ali story!' So,
I was terrified by that prospect, until I met Michael Mann.
Q: I was going
to ask about this idea that there would have been a negative sense out
there that the Fresh Prince of Bel Air was playing the king of the boxing
world. It's going to take two years of your life to become this man. Did
it take you a long time to make that choice? Was it a big step?
Smith: Well, I turned the script down for years. Probably for six years.
I think I was probably 27 the first time a script was presented to me.
I just turned it down for years and years. I couldn't see the road from
Will Smith, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, to Muhammad Ali. Someone said 'you
have to become Muhammad Ali' I didn't know what I would do that first
day. What do you do to become Muhammad Ali? Michael Mann was the first
person who illustrated what he called the 'course syllabus' for becoming
Muhammad Ali. He said 'I will create the curriculum that will create Muhammad
Ali inside of you' and I was like 'alright, cool!' I didn't know what
it was! He said that there would be essentially a three-tiered course
syllabus. The first tier would be physical. He said we are going to run
the way Muhammad Ali ran in the cities that he ran in, on the routes that
he ran. We are going to eat the food that Muhammad Ali ate. We are going
to spar the way he sparred. We are going to go get Angelo Dundee and train
the way Muhammad Ali trained. And by we, he meant me! He said from creating
the physical life and the physical burden of a fighter and that physical
burden of Muhammad Ali that would take us to the second tier, which would
be the mental and emotional development of Muhammad Ali. And he said by
understanding what it feels like to be in a ring, and when that bell rings,
and you know that there's an animal on the other side of that ring that
wants nothing more than to tear your head off, by being in that physical
space you will understand that mental and emotional stress that Muhammad
Ali lived with on a daily basis, which would naturally carry us to the
third tier which would be the spiritual development. From understanding
the physical, mental and emotional he said that I would understand the
necessity for the spiritual convictions that Muhammad Ali had developed
during the period that we were shooting in the film.
Q: Was there a
moment when you felt you had made the right choice, that you felt you
had become Ali? That you felt you had made it?
Smith: You know there were moments that information created an epiphany.
I don't specifically remember a moment where I said 'I got it, I'm Ali'
I don't remember that moment. It was such a gradual process for me, I'm
glad you saw it! I don't specifically. I remember Michael called in a
guy called Jeronimo, formerly Jeronimo Pratt, of the Black Panthers. He
came in and sat down and Michael called him in to give me a sense of the
era because that was what was really difficult for me. The comprehension
of the sixties is so foreign. I'm a child of rap music, cars and women
so I just cannot relate to the social upheaval of the sixties and Jeronimo
said that war had been declared on black America. Fire hoses, dogs, domestic
terrorism, the bombing of the church in Birmingham, Alabama. He said war
had been declared and when he said that, I just felt a wave of understanding.
Of course, Muhammad Ali had not gone to Vietnam to fight a war when in
his mind, he's fighting a war right here at home and if he goes 10,000
miles away women and children aren't safe here in America. One war at
a time. And with that point of view, I started to feel the dominoes begin
to tumble towards becoming Muhammad Ali and understanding the necessity
for that point of view. The necessity for this hero during that era.
Mann: I would also add that as it evolved, it was very much a year spent
with both of us learning Ali-ness basically. The bottom line is that we
would be doing a scene and everything that Will had learned and all the
training, all this had not been forgotten, abandoned. And you have to
step off the edge of a cliff, the only thing I'm going to ask for is being
Ali in the moment and being totally spontaneous to it. So if there is
an outrage that he has just been visited by a boxing commission, and as
he is coming down the stairs in that lobby, he is just exploding. I drop
my breathing to a different part of my solar-plexus so that my inclination
drops into Ali's range, and don't forget to put your tongue behind your
teeth in a certain way so that I get the Kentucky sound through that vowel.
That all has to be abandoned, now you're flying, you're on a high wire
without a net. And that's where that has to go, and the most difficult
thing of all to do is to see and grasp and have insights into things in
advance of everybody else exactly the way Ali did. Because Ali characteristically
would. It's almost as if the way his mind worked, because that was when
he had an objective, he was going to do justice throughout the world.
My job is to actually discover the way Ali discovered, to think the way
Ali thought. Almost as if he would see something in a room and suddenly
he would see an opening and he would be taking advantage of it, there
would be a reflex. The hardest part of the struggle of actually becoming
Ali, in my mind, is to be so totally immersed in character that you are
dreaming in Ali speak.
Q: The film is
about a very great boxer, but what is your view about boxing as a sport?
Mann: I think, we both have our own thoughts about it. I think first of
all boxers are like actors, like directors. I mean an actor isn't intimidated
to get on the stage, he can't wait to get on the stage and he better have
his mind in that perspective and so, too, with a boxer. He may have anxiety
in a fight but if he's prepared he can't wait to get in that ring. The
spectrum of personalities we encountered on this film of intelligent,
literate, decent guys, for these men, of course, it requires a commitment
of courage but it's highly strategic. There is an art and it's not two
guys getting in a ring, hitting each other, the one who hits harder is
the winner. That's not boxing.
Smith: I think also in America, what happened in boxing in the early 20s,
30s and 40s and in any society where there is a group of people that had
been colonised by another group of people, the boxing ring is the only
place that is fair. For Jack Johnson, for Joe Louis, for Muhammad Ali,
the boxing ring represented the only place that racism didn't matter.
Because when Johnson hits you with that right hand, no matter how racist
you are, you're asleep! So it represented a place where it was man to
man, it was one on one and there was no perceivable way to cheat. So I
think that's a large part of the reason why people tend to gravitate towards
the boxing match as a true test of man to man. There is no room for the
referee to fly a flag; you can't get a red card! There's none of that,
it's one to one, man on man. Or woman to woman! Absolutely!