Page 15 - Will Smith: A Biography of a Rapper Turned Movie Star

Getting Paid to Party
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science fiction. I think at heart, I’m really an idealist and
there’s nowhere for me in entertainment that you can
really stretch the bounds of human possibility more than
science fiction. I just love it.”7
With his natural curiosity and basic intelligence, Will was
able to earn good grades. However, there was another reason
he continued to achieve. He later said, “I hated being in
trouble. I was so petrified of my parents [that] I managed to
avoid most pitfalls teens fall in. . . . My father was a serious
disciplinarian. I wouldn’t dare bring home a D on my report
card. The bottom line was no nonsense.”8 His father’s
expectations followed Will beyond the classroom: “I never
tried drugs,” he said, “because I felt he would kill me. Literally.”9
Although Will Smith Sr. was tough on his children, Will
Jr. realized his father was just as hard on himself. He knew
that his father always did whatever a job required. Will often
went along when his father was installing freezers in
supermarkets. One time, when Will was about twelve years
old, they were setting up a freezer in a supermarket
basement. Across the floor, store employees had spread a rat
poison called D-Con.
Will said, “So we go in and [my father] is looking for the
compressor and he has a flashlight. And [here] is a dead rat
that had been dead for four days and it was half eaten. Like the
back legs had been eaten away by the D-Con but the top half
was still full and was kind of stuck in the gunk. Right? That
was the place where my father needed to get to. No hesitation
at all. Flashlight. Finds the compressor, the rat is on the floor,