Will smith the matrix, In an interview with Wired, The Fresh Prince was asked if he had any regrets. His response: "You know, The Matrix is a difficult concept to pitch. In the pitch, I just didn\'t see it. I watched Keanu\'s performance - and very rarely do I say this - but I would have messed it up. I would have absolutely messed up The Matrix. At that point I wasn\'t smart enough as an actor to let the movie be. Whereas Keanu was smart enough to just let it be. Let the movie and the director tell the story, and don\'t try and perform every moment."
So let me get this straight, Will. You just called yourself AND Keanu terrible actors? At least this partially explains why Wild Wild West was soooo terrible. What's funny is that you seemed to take your performance in West so seriously, when even if you had 'let the movie be,' it still would've been awful. And how was The Matrix any harder to pitch? Evil robots having already taken over the world? Sounds a lot more reasonable than a half-robotic Confederate mad scientist trying to take over America in a giant robotic spider...OH, and the Secret Service was formed by Abraham Lincoln, NOT Ulysses S. Grant. Sorry to spoil the surprise ending, but that always really bothered me.
As it turns out, Smith passed up on one of the biggest summer blockbusters of all time to star in one of the all-time worst. The Matrix went on to become the fifth-highest grossing film of 1999 and win four Academy Awards; Wild Wild West, despite the highest film budget that year ($170 million!), only managed five Razzies! Maybe Will wanted to avoid the inevitable Matrix sequels that were nowhere near as good as the original film? Oh wait, he's currently working on Bad Boys III, Independence Day II (followed by IDIII), Men in Black III, I, Robot II, and a prequel to I Am Legend. Never mind.
On the bright side, at least we were spared a Matrix Rap during the film's end credits?
