Will Smith's new movie I Am Legend is a huge risk, since it mostly seems to be about Will Smith cowering fully-clothed in an empty bath for two hours.
So what Will Smith needs to do for I Am Legend – more than with any of his other films – is sell it. Sell sell sell. Promote the movie as a thrilling romp that the whole family will enjoy. Exclude nobody in its appeal. And that's why Will Smith has decided to promote I Am Legend by giving a lengthy television interview all about how much Tom Cruise has taught him about the benefits of being a fully paid-up member of the Scientologists.
Oh.
We've never been able to understand what Tom Cruise and Will Smith see in each other. Aside from a shared thermonuclear sense of self-confidence and the way they're both just a little bit too oversincere and laugh just one decibel too loudly to ever be convincing, we've never really grasped what the two of them have in common.
And yet it's there – Tom Cruise organised David Beckham's Welcome To LA party with Will Smith, and Will and his wife Jada were among the first people to see Suri Cruise when she was born. Why? Because Jada is a Scientologist and Tom Cruise has vowed not to rest until he's signed Will up, too?
Don't be such a cynical bastard – that's absolutely not the case in the slightest. And to prove his point, Will Smith has decided to use an interview for his movie I Am Legend to tell the world how brilliant Tom Cruise is and all about the Scientology belief system and how you puny idiots will never ever even be a fraction of how brilliant Tom Cruise is at being a human being. Will told Access Hollywood:
“I was introduced, [to] it by Tom and I’m a student of world religion. I was raised in a Baptist household, I went to a Catholic school, but the ideas of the Bible are 98 percent the same ideas of Scientology, 98 percent the same ideas of Hinduism and Buddhism… When I sit and I talk with Tom Cruise, he is one of the greatest spirits that I’ve ever met – someone who is committed to making the world better. You have people [that] are attacking and wanna fight that don’t know nothing — how you gonna not know nothing about Scientology and attack somebody? It’s dangerous and it’s ignorant. How can I condemn someone for what they believe and I believe that God was born from a pregnant virgin?”
Let's just hope that Will Smith's Tom Cruise infatuation cools down a bit before I Am Legend is released because, while there's nothing wrong with defending a friend's religion – even if it's a religion that all of Germany hates – we can easily see how it could all spiral out of control and end up with Will Smith leaping around on a piece of home furnishing whooping like a faulty rape alarm. And that way madness lies.
Still, we're sure that Tom Cruise will be thrilled that Will Smith has leapt to his defence so publicly, although it's a relief that we won't be there when Tom and Will meet each other for the first time after the interview. After the first 45 minutes of hearing ever-harder high-fives, arm-punches and relentlessly-sincere cries of "You the man!" "No, you the man!" we'd probably start to get a little bored.
Read more:
Stephen says
What is that sound I here? Its Will Smith’s career and reputation being flushed down the toilet after him shilling for a cult. Good work Will Smith! You shill for a religion founded by a man who ridiculed african americans and all other non-anglo’s
http://www.solitarytrees.net/racism/intro.htm
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2594270091066150939
Lake says
Yawn. Your links, Stephen, are full of ridiculous made-up and out-of-context quotes. Everything in them has been thoroughly debunked or put into their proper context by Scientologists and the church over the years, time after time. This site, for example, does an admirable job:
http://scientologymyths.info
The author of the above hecklerspray article is simply bummed because … surprise … not everyone is towing the hecklerspray party line. “How dare Will Smith look for himself and come to his own conclusions!” is effectively the message that hecklerspray wants us to buy.
terryeo lightfield says
Yeah it’s so great how scientology opened churches in aparthied South Africa when it was being boycotted by pretty much the rest of the civilized world. Anyways Lake, you can’t even read the
critical stuff that has been posted if you are a scientologist, you have software on your computer
that blocks anything critical of scientology. Why would anyone want to join a cult that allows no
discussion or criticsm?
L. Ron Hubbard explains why there is no “native” problem in the apartheid state of South Africa in HCOB 10 October 1960, entitled “Current News”:
“The problem of South Africa is different than the world thinks. There is no native problem. The native worker gets more than white workers do in England!”
Black people were treated well in apartheid South Africa? Do you think Will Smith knows L Ron said
this?
gir says
Scientologye on The Internete: A Playe ine Three Actes
Two houses, both alike in indignity, on fair Internet where we lay our scene….
Acte One:
Scientology Hater: Scientology is for fags.
Acte Two:
Scientology Lover: No u r for fags u fag.
Acte Three:
Repeat Acts One and Two Ad Nauseam
~fin~
AZ says
Scientology RETARDS. I will never buy Usher, Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, Will Smith, his silly wife Woo or anyone in these CULTS music/films EVER AGAIN! REMEMBER THE DEAD NON-CELEBRITIES WHO WERE SUCKERED INTO THIS XENU BS!
I AM LEGEND is Scientology PROPOGANDA. OPEN YOUR EYES FOLKS. BOYCOTT THESE IDIOTS.
Mike from L.A. says
Will Smith = moron. “but the ideas of the Bible are 98 percent the same ideas of Scientology” Newsflash bozo, Christianity is about Jesus Christ and God Almighty not space ships and bombs and thetans.