Bet You Didn’t Know: Secrets Behind The Making Of “The Pursuit Of Happyness”
Jaden
Technically, Will was the bigger star when this movie came out. But surprisingly, he said the little Smith was the one who helped him break out of the super hero, action star shell and tap into the authenticity the film needed.
“I was struggling with a scene. Seven, eight times [Gabriele Muccino] was coming up and giving me notes. With a particularly difficult scene I was struggling and Jaden said to me, ‘Psst, you just do the same thing every take, Daddy.’ And I was like, you know, I was a little offended by that. But what he was saying was that innately he couldn’t understand how I was reading everything exactly the same way every time. He was feeling like, ‘Well, that’s not real. I thought we were supposed to be trying to make this real.’
I started watching him and you know how kids are. If he decides he wants to get up and walk, he’ll get up and walk. The cameraman will just follow him. But I had my blocking; I knew my left leg was forward. I knew that I was saying it with my left hand every time so in order for them to make the edit, I would do it with my left hand every time. He broke me out of a mechanical space.
