Will Smith after the infamous slap at the Oscars released a memoir titled Will co-authored by the writer of The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fu*k, Mark Manson. The memoir is transparent, brutally honest, and funny considering Will Smith himself has always been transparent with his fans. In the memoir, he talks about his s*x addiction, m*sturbat*on, heartbreaks, professional hurdles, and more. 

Along the lines of professional hurdles, Smith was and continues to be ambitious. He has never shied away from stating his ambitions about becoming the best in the industry. When he was young Smith was very competitive, he tried to beat all his contemporaries one of them was Tom Cruise. Will Smith elaborated on his relationship with Tom Cruise and how he was competing with Cruise. The King Richard actor went on to try and beat Tom Cruise’s working hours. 

Will Smith could not compete with Tom Cruise 

Will Smith elaborates on how early on he understood the importance of promotions, meeting and greeting people, and appearing everywhere you possibly could. He started to notice how most of Hollywood does not like travel and meeting fans so Smith began to scout for someone who has cracked the code and is privy to the secret of success in Hollywood, and voila Tom Cruise. Smith writes.

“I started quietly monitoring all of Tom’s global promotional activities. When I arrived in a country to promote my movie, I would ask the local movie executives to give me Tom’s promotional schedule. And I vowed to do two hours more than whatever he did in every country.”

Will Smith

Will Smith began the journey with much enthusiasm only to find he could no longer keep up. Will Smith exasperated by the tight schedule and long working hours said,

“Unfortunately, Tom Cruise is either a cyborg or there are six of him. I was receiving reports of four-and-a-half-hour stretches on red carpets in Paris, London, Tokyo… In Berlin, Tom signed every single autograph until there was no one else who wanted one. Tom Cruise’s global promotions were the individual best in Hollywood.”

He continued,

“Tom couldn’t do that — neither could Arnold, Bruce, or Sly. I’d found my way out of the entertainment news segment and into headline news. And once your movie moves from entertainment to news, it’s no longer a movie — it’s a cultural phenomenon.”

The actor finally cracked a way to beat Cruise but the story is far from over. The Aladdin actor met Cruise and upon meeting him all his notions of competition and besting each other were thrown out of the window. 

Tom Cruise helped Will Smith to gain international fame

Will Smith in I Am Legend

 Will Smith competed against Cruise but the Mission: Impossible actor had no such intentions he was more than willing to help Smith in his hurdles through Hollywood. Will Smith shared with Newsweek,

“Tom is one of the most open, honest, and helpful people I’ve met in Hollywood, or anywhere. I mean, how many people in his position would want me to win, want me to be a bigger and better movie star? Few people in this business want me to win like that. I was so used to competition between other artists that I just didn’t get him at first. That blew my mind because that is not how this business works at all,”

This interaction and further relationship with Cruise helped Will Smith see another side of Hollywood. Finding a contemporary who was ready to support him in his career and do well was shocking at first but relief at last. Tom Cruise sent four hours’ worth of notes to Will Smith on his script I am Legend, the film bought the actor into the lens of Hollywood bigwigs and bought international fame.