Will Smith is one of the most popular and beloved actors in the film industry, and he has been quite active for years, but he took a small break from acting in 2008 – here’s why. Will Smith’s career began in the music business in the mid-1980s, and he started to make his way into the film and TV industry in 1990, appearing in ABC Afterschool Special and The Earth Day Special. His breakthrough came that same year when he starred in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, a project that arrived just in time as he was struggling financially at the time.
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air follows a fictionalized version of Smith who is sent to move in with his wealthy uncle and aunt in their Bel Air mansion after getting into a fight in his hometown. The show came to an end in 1996, but in the meantime, Smith started building his career on the big screen. His first role was in the crime drama Where the Day Takes You, and his film breakthrough came shortly after with the films Six Degrees of Separation, Bad Boys, and Independence Day. Since then, Smith has appeared in at least one film every year, with a couple of special TV appearances in-between, except after 2008.
2008 was a busy year in Will Smith’s career, with five films released that year, though he didn’t star in all of them. Smith served as producer in The Human Contact, The Secret Life of Bees, and Lakeview Terrace, and starred (and produced, as well) in Hancock and Seven Pounds. After that, Smith’s filmography jumps to 2012, when he reprised his role as Agent J in Men in Black 3, though he produced two films between 2008 and 2012: The Karate Kid (starring his son, Jaden Smith) and This Means War. While it seems odd that Smith stopped starring in movies in those years, he actually had good reasons to take a break.
In 2009, Contactmusic (via DigitalSpy) reported that Will Smith was going to take a break from acting to look after his family. At the time, his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith was working on TNT’s TV series Hawthorne, where she played the lead character, and Jaden Smith was filming The Karate Kid in China. It was Pinkett-Smith who revealed that her husband chose to stay at home while she and their son were working, and even shared that the famous actor lacks domestic abilities, but he “did the parenting”.
Will Smith came back in 2012 with Men in Black 3 and returned to his regular schedule of appearing in at least one film per year. Among his most notable works during this come back are Suicide Squad, Bright, Aladdin, Gemini Man, and Bad Boys for Life. Will Smith has two more film projects coming up in the near future – the biographical drama King Richard and Life in a Year, executive produced by him and Jada Pinkett-Smith and starring Jaden Smith – so it’s unlikely he will take another break in the foreseeable future.