When Jada Pinkett Smith Revealed She Didn’t Want To Play Will Smith’s On-Screen Wife (Picture Credit: IMDb)
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After their few years-long romance and marriage in 1997, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith soon became the ‘It’ couple of Hollywood. However, they did not share screen space for years till filmmaker Michael Mann refused to take a no for an answer from Jada. Scroll down to learn how the actress agreed to work with her husband on legendary boxer Muhammad Ali’s biopic.
Jada and Will first met on the sets of the latter’s show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. While the Matrix star auditioned to play Will’s girlfriend, she lost the show but did make a lasting connection with her then-future husband.
While the 2001 film Ali did wonders at the box office as well in the audience’s hearts, the biggest surprise in the flick was Jada Pinkett Smith playing the on-screen wife of her real-life husband, Will Smith. Being an actress, Jada was reportedly against working with Will but she made an exception after her interaction with the director.
As per a report by FandomWire, Jada once opened up about her conversation with Michael Mann and revealed how he was firm about his decision. She said, “[Michael Mann] called me and then he’s like, ‘You’re not going to tell me no.’ He’s like, ‘You’re going to do this role.’ And I just had to trust him and he pulled it off, the brilliant director that he is.”
Revealing why she did not want to work with Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith said, “I didn’t want to audition for this. I felt like because we were a couple off-screen, for people to see us together on the screen in a movie like this, would take people out of the movie, that people would see Will and Jada there and they wouldn’t see Ali and Sonji. And I was so against it.” However, Muhammad Ali’s biopic came out to be a great one as it also got Will his first Oscar nomination.
