Will Smith (born September 25, 1968) is an American actor, producer and rapper best known for achieving modest fame as a rapper under the name The Fresh Prince and for his roles as Will "The Fresh Prince" Smith on the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air from 1990 to 1996, Agent J in the Men in Black films, Muhammad Ali in the 2001 biographical film Ali, Chris Gardner in the 2006 biographical drama film The Pursuit of Happyness, Dr. Robert Neville in the 2007 post-apocalyptic science fiction horror film I Am Legend and as John Hancock in the 2008 action drama-comedy superhero film Hancock.
Smith's portrayal of Bennet Omalu in Concussion (2015) was positively received, followed by portrayals of Deadshot in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) superhero film Suicide Squad (2016) and Genie in the live-action Aladdin (2019). For his portrayal of Richard Williams in the biographical sports drama King Richard (2021), Smith won the Academy Award for Best Actor, making him the first rapper to win an acting Oscar, 33 years after he became the first musician to win a Grammy for rap music. However, in 2022, Will Smith was involved in an incident when he slapped and yelled at Chris Rock at the Academy Awards for making a bad joke about Smith's wife, whom went bald due to alopecia. After winning the award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Richard Williams (Serena Williams's dad) in King Richard, Smith apologized for his behavior, and later resigned from the Academy and was banned from attending the Oscars for ten years.
Although he has never been on Saturday Night Live, he has been impersonated by Tim Meadows on November 14, 1998 during the "VH1 Spirituality Awards" sketch, Jay Pharoah five times from September 25, 2010 to October 5, 2013, and Chris Redd on January 20, 2018, and April 2, 2022, in a sketch that parodied the infamous slap.
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