Two images have arguably come to define Will Smith’s career. The first, from 1995’s Bad Boys, is a lingering shot of the previously scrawny star of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air with shirt undone and pecs prominent – a close-up insisted upon by director Michael Bay over the actor’s objections and which Smith later credited with marking his baptism as an A-list movie star.
The second is of Smith striking Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars, 40 minutes before the Academy named him Best Actor for his sports biopic King Richard. It was an outburst prompted by a joke host Rock made about Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith and her alopecia, and which resulted in Smith receiving a 10-year ban from the Academy Awards. This August, there may well come a third life-encapsulating moment when Smith, once the biggest movie star not named Tom Cruise, takes to the stage at Scarborough Open Air Theatre in an attempt to revitalise a hip-hop alter-ego that’s been in the deepest of deep freezes since 2005.
