After Earth Q&A with Will and Jaden Smith

What an experience! Being in the presence of Hollywood royalty Will Smith, Jaden Smith and director M.Night Shyamalan  was certainly a surreal moment. Yes, I was lucky enough to win tickets to the After Earth sneak preview and Q&A at the Odeon in Leicester Square last night. 

After quite a long anticipated wait, we were introduced to our host Alex Zane who came onto the stage with evident excitement. He told us that flash photography would not be allowed but that surprisingly during the interview, we should get our phones out and tweet as much as possible! We were then able to sit back, and relax (or rather be on the edge of our seats) for the fifteen minute sneak preview of the film. 

If you are unaware of the context of this film, it is essentially a sci-fi, action packed story based on an idea by Will Smith about a crash landing on Earth after it has been deserted by humans for a thousand years. The crash leaves protagonist Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) and Cypher, his father (Will Smith) stranded. With Cypher being badly injured, the only option is for Kitai to venture out of the ship, onto Earth in order to signal for help to get home. However, Earth has become a primitive, harsh landscape with animals dominating the land and so the journey Kitai has to undertake becomes very difficult as he is a constant target. But in order to get home, it is imperative that father and son work as a team in order to achieve help but this unfortunately proves a very tricky task. Read more here: http://www.afterearth.com/site/

The preview certainly was very appealing and I think the film will be a hit among both sci-fi lovers and Smith fans. It is rammed with clever CGI and the audience are able to see real emotion portrayed among the characters; as we were able to see predominantly in one scene where Jaden is faced with a big dilemma. This film is set to be a big hit, and judging from the powerful emotive soundtrack and the extensive visual effects, I think this is definitely one to see in the cinema.   

After the preview, it was the moment we had all been waiting for... Will, Jaden and M.Night entered the room to a screaming frenzy of fans (a very surreal moment as they were literally feet away!). The best thing about it was that they looked really genuinely happy to be there with both Will and Jaden maintaning their authentic charm. 

The interview was swift to begin with Zane asking how the film came about:   

Jaden is then asked by Zane what it feels like to be able to see "this multi-million dollar movie on screen" to which Jaden replies: 

Zane then proceeds to ask about the intense father and son relationship that is portrayed within the film and whether the relationship at home is different. Will comically replies that it is very similar and plays on a quote in the film; 

"Jaden eat your spinach or we are going to die"

Jaden replies by saying "Its similar in some ways but Cypher and my dad are two completely different people...He's really different than that...But in the pursuit of happiness its a completely different story, they are the same person.. It was literally like Yo dad can I go and get some orange juice out of the fridge; We can't afford any orange juice Jaden; We can its in the fridge already!!!!"    

After a lot of laughter from the audience, Will argues back 

"I was in my morning character!"

Jaden agrees by joking about the extent to which Will was in character at home;

"He stopped showering and buying things for like a month!"

The next question from Zane was directed to Will;

 "Obviously you are a producer on the movie as well Will. What's it like as a producer knowing that your son is going to be doing such physically active and action packed stunts, running around in Costa Rica doing all that kind of thing?" 

To which Will replied;

"You're a producer and a father right. So as a producer your job is to make sure the movie gets made, and as a father you just wanna make sure the movie gets made with your kid staying alive for the process...As a father there is a certain amount of push that you wanna give your son...As strange as it sounds movie making is our family business so I wanna push him and I wanna teach him that the director has designed the shots, the director has tested the shots so clearly its safe. So I wanted to push him but its just that the father was waiting out more times than not"

Shyamalan then intervenes;

" Wills an athlete, very skilled so there would be lots of times where you [Jaden] would be doing parkour..." Jaden describes what parkour means to the audience; 

"Jumping, running, flipping, diving, just escaping something but looking cool at the same time" and then Shyamalan continues "There would be times when I would be fine with what he did, like he'd parkour of a tree and then run off but then Will would push him even further to go faster and do it harder. So there were times when the athlete family came out"   

Jaden then talks to his dad about why he never sees the father on set, only the producer. Will swiftly replies; "what it is is, I cant father you on the set at work because you know your at work, you signed a contract, you have work to do, you have things that you have to do... so I was fathering you behind your back"   

There was a lot of laughter among the audience at this point and I think it was here when people were able to see that there was a really strong father son connection between Jaden and Will. The interview continued for about twenty minutes and was very interesting and revealing both about the film, but also about Will, Jaden and Shyamalan as people. 

If you want to access the entire interview, it should be available on itunes soon! 

Thank you for reading!!!