Wow, what a read. One of the most recognisable Hollywood names in the world lays all to bare for the reader. Presenting: Will the Superstar v.s. Will the Coward.
Will Smith is almost serving himself as a case study to those who may think about giving up, and imploring them not to. He tells us about the savage beatings his father would inflict in the family home, then is boastful about how his gamble to skip college and record rap songs resulted in hit records, “Skeptics called my ‘Summertime’ record self-delusion, I called it ‘another Grammy and my first number 1 record’”.
The underlying message in this memoir, written with the help of Mark Manson, is not the story or Superstar vs Coward, but instead of Smith’s insatiable appetite to win. Whether it is Monopoly with his children, who can command the highest acting fee, box office records, Smith has zero misgivings about the fact that he has to win. Amongst my favourite references are the fact that when Jim Carrey was the leading fee earner in Hollywood at $20m a movie, Smith would start the bidding at $21m. Another is when Tom Cruise would pull 12hour days doing multi-city tours to promote his movies, Smith would do the same but add in music concerts on top.
Early in the book, Smith refers to one of his literary love affairs, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. (the other being “The Alchemist”). The book details a familiar literary story framework of a hero called to adventure → facing a challenge → having a crisis → experience a revelation/transformation → all before eventual triump. Smith takes us through his own version of this journey, through his troubled childhood home which preceded eventual success. That is why it is surprising there is an underlying sense of sadness throughout the book - despite all the successes, we are told of his multiple failed marriages, and his deteriorating relationships with his children. What’s more, despite understanding that his own addiction of wanting ‘more, more, more’ may be the cause of this, there appears to be little real atonement.
Despite this, would highly recommend this read.