An hour before Will Smith arrived at the Denver Newspaper Agency last month, people were gathering in the airy lobby. Guards were already gently corralling. By the time the box-office titan’s bus pulled up, there was a crowd abuzz, cellphone cameras at the ready.
Smith is an impossibly genial guy. Walking with purpose, he still connects. He did a quick lean-in pose for a woman standing near a pillar. He’s got security. He’s got people. Yet, he treats it as a privilege — and a hoot — to be adored.
As he walked down the hall toward a conference room, Smith poked his head into the coffee room.
“You people need to get back to work,” he said with a chuckle. Yes, he chuckles at his jokes, but also at yours.
His wattage is warm. And he wasn’t switching it on merely to spotlight his latest picture, “Seven Pounds,” opening Friday.
Denver was the last stop on a good Will tour of five cities. That evening, Smith handed over 300 turkeys to the Food Bank of the Rockies at a Colorado premiere of the drama. Before that, he visited Children’s Hospital, Montbello’s John Amesse Elementary School and the Rev. Leon Kelly’s Open Door Youth Gang Alternatives in Five Points.
It was a tour Smith undertook in part, he said, in response to the election of Barack Obama.
“This is a really beautiful time,” he said. “It’s an absolutely new America, what people are talking about, just the general emotion.” It called to him.
“I’m at the point where I’m looking at myself, looking at my family and want to measure myself by how many people’s lives are better because I woke up today, how many families can I feed, how many kids can I put through college, how many marriages can I save. ”
In a sense, “Seven Pounds” is about an even more obsessive altruism.
Smith plays IRS agent Ben Thomas. Because of personal tragedy, he’s driven to change the lives of seven strangers.
The drama reunites Smith with “Pursuit of Happyness” director Gabriele Muccino.
“He can see through me,” Smith said of his Italian-born director. “None of my tricks work. I’ve got a whole tool box of acting tricks. Gabriele will watch a scene and say” — Smith adopts an Italian accent — ” ‘You are not angry for real. Go to your trailer. Come back and see me when you’re angry for real. Don’t pose for my camera.’ ”
Smith knows the screenplay stretched him — and hopes it will do the same to audiences.
“It’s funny how much this doggone character has affected my life,” he said. “Ben, he’s looking for people to help. He’s a guy who experienced a tragedy and went into a deep depression. The only thing that got him to move out of this depression was purpose.
“I’m starting to see the relationship between depression and hope,” he said. “What is that difference? The difference is purpose, right?”
Smith has a habit of inserting “right” into his sentences. It brings the listener along for the ride. But it’s also the way he reminds himself he’s uncovering what feels true.
“When you find a purpose, right, it’s really difficult to be depressed. When you have certainty about what you’re doing, who you want to be, what you want to do, that commitment to that purpose really pulls you out of that space.”
Weeks after Smith’s visit, people still ask “He’s a really nice guy, isn’t he?” It’s statement more than question.
During the interview, a Post colleague barreled into the room. Afterward, I kvetched.
“Don’t say that on tape,” Smith said, smiling and waving his hand over the recorder.
Told he should offer lessons in graciousness, he recounted an anecdote about his maternal grandmother, Helen Bright, a.k.a. Gigi.
“You know what my grandmother told me that was really fantastic? She said there’s only one set of stuff, right, and you get to decide whether it’s tools or weapons.” He paused.
“She had fake teeth, so she really said it with all these sssses.”
Then, because he loves telling tales, he repeated it, leaning in like a conspiratorial elder sharing the wisdom. All the “s”es intact.
