Will Smith has played a variety of characters throughout his career in film and TV, but he has never played one that was a true villain – but why? Will Smith has become one of the most popular actors in the entertainment industry thanks to his many memorable roles on the big screen and television, and it helps that his characters are mostly quite likable and relatable, to an extent. Smith’s career began in the music realm, in the hip-hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, and after some financial issues, he starred in the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, marking his transition to TV and his big break in the entertainment world.
Smith made the jump to film in 1992 in the crime drama Where The Day Takes You, but his first major role arrived the following year in the drama Six Degrees of Separation, followed by Bad Boys in 1995. Since then, Will Smith’s career has been full of action, comedy, and even drama, as he has played a variety of characters from different genres, and while not all have been a success, his popularity has mostly remained intact. However, there’s one type of character that Smith has been avoiding for some reason: a villain.
In over three decades in the entertainment industry, Will Smith has played a bit of everything: from detectives to secret agents and even superheroes, and while he has come close to playing the villain or the antagonist in a couple of projects, there’s always a redeeming moment or quality that ultimately doesn’t let the character enjoy the label of “villain”. For example, I Am Legend, based on the 1954 novel of the same name by Richard Matheson, could have seen Will Smith as a character with moral ambiguity who is ultimately revealed to be the real menace, but the movie instead gave him a heroic moment by having him sacrifice himself. Another chance could have been playing Deadshot in Suicide Squad, but the characters, traditionally depicted as villains in the comics, are more like antiheroes in the movie, so once more, Will Smith came close to it.
Although Will Smith hasn’t explained why there’s a lack of villainous characters in his vast filmography, it most likely has to do with his reputation in the film industry. Smith has become one of the most likable movie stars, all thanks to those successful movies in the 1990s, which have allowed him to maintain his popularity even though some of his movies haven’t been exactly the best. He has also made his name bankable, so it’s quite possible that studios are not willing to risk losing money by giving Will Smith a character that isn’t likable nor relatable. Of course, it’s also very possible that this is all a decision Smith made for the sake of his career, seeing how well his projects have performed by playing heroes, good guys, and characters who get involved in lots of action. Back in 2007, in an interview with Time, Smith shared that when he was making The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, he established that he wanted to be “the biggest movie star in the world”, and along with his manager James Lassiter, they studied the top-grossing movies of all time to identify certain patterns and make better decisions when taking roles.
Although Will Smith has taken more serious roles over the years, it’s unlikely he will explore the realm of movie villains anytime soon, unless the audience is ready to see him playing a character they can’t root for. It’s undeniable that he has played his cards well when it comes to his acting career, and while he doesn’t really need to add a villain role to his filmography, it would be an interesting career move.
