Will Smith Almost Turned Down Role In $2B Franchise If Not For Spielberg's Grand Gesture

On July 2, 1997, Men in Black premiered. The movie grossed almost $600 million worldwide, Ray-Ban tripled sales of its sunglasses (which were worn by Agents Jay and Kay), a sequel, a triquel and several computer games were released.

The movie won an Academy Award for best make-up and Will Smith remembered that he was also a musician, wrote the hit of the same name and further expanded the army of his fans.

Undoubtedly, one of the ingredients for the success of Men in Black was Will Smith as Agent Jay and Tommy Lee Jones as Agent Kay – now it's hard to imagine other actors in their place. However, the cast of the movie could have been different if not for the producer of the movie, Steven Spielberg.

The first person filmmakers wanted to play the lead role was the young actor Chris O'Donnell, who at that time had managed to star in Scent of a Woman and Batman Forever.

Another candidate for the role of Agent Jay was David Schwimmer – Ross from Friends. The actor himself turned down the role because he was working on his directorial debut, Since You’ve Been Gone.

O'Donnell was considered a top choice for the lead role until the worldwide success of the disaster movie Independence Day, which made Will Smith a true movie star.

Smith himself was reluctant to do Men in Black, feeling that two movies about aliens in a row was not the best choice. Producer Steven Spielberg tried to convince the actor to change his mind.

Will Smith revealed how it was:

“Steven Spielberg sent a helicopter for me to talk. It landed at his house. […] He said, 'Tell me why you don't want to make my movie....' […] If he had continued, he would've said, 'Joker, you know I made Jaws, right? You know I made E.T.’”

As a result, Spielberg's powers of persuasion worked, and Smith accepted the role, which would become one of the most important of his career.

Source: Peacock