The Legend of Will Smith

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The math of moviemaking enthralls Smith, who calls himself a "student of universal patterns." To hear him talk about analyzing the weekend box office with Lassiter is to see flashes of the aspiring engineer who almost attended MIT. "Every Monday morning, we sit down--'O.K., what happened this weekend, and what are the things that resemble things that have happened the last 10, 20, 30 weekends?' It is so much fun to look at something everyone's looking at to see if a different pattern comes out for you." With Legend, Smith hopes to break one of Hollywood's rigid rules. "Summer movies are about things that happen, and fall movies are about how people respond to things that happen," he says. "The drill was to try to blend those two things, to make a movie that is 100% about following the character [scientist Robert Neville] and how the character reacts to what happened [the destruction of humanity]." Smith traditionally owns July 4 weekend, with things-that-happen movies like Independence Day. "There is a youthful energy that I have that fits during that time of release and rejuvenation," he says, expressing a level of self-knowledge rare for people who make their living playing make-believe. For a December release like Legend, "I have to focus more 'cause it's not my natural lane."

A career axiom that Smith figured out early on still stymies plenty of big-name American actors. "Movie stars are made with worldwide box office," Smith says. "You put a movie out in the U.S., and let's say it breaks even. Then the studio needs you to go around the world and get profit. Being able to get $30 mil in England, 37 in Japan, 15 in Germany is what makes the studio support your movies differently than they support other actors' movies." He has built his global audience systematically: with each film, Smith introduces himself to a new people, often piggybacking on a local event that will attract worldwide attention. For Men in Black II, he toured in South Korea during the World Cup; for Hitch, he hit Brazil during carnival; for next year's fallen-superhero tale Hancock, he's trying to get into Beijing during the Olympics.

Smith applies the same kind of arithmetic and discipline to his personal life, and as a result, he enjoys a Hollywood rarity: a stable 10-year marriage. "Our first official date was with a relationship counselor," he says. "The math of it is simple. Start while it's good. Do it three times a week while you're laughing and still having fun. You get so much more work done. You head off problems. Do it during the ether time, and do it aggressively. There's nothing you've ever been successful at that you didn't work on every day." Who knew one man could learn so much from being cheated on at 16?