Will Smith Quincy Jones audition story
by Freddenver: Will Smith
Will Smith admits he went broke after his first round of success before Benny Medina brought him to Quincy Jones's house to pitch a show. He thought he was walking into a party for the night because Quincy had just won the Soul Train Lifetime Achievement Award or something similar, but the vibe shifted immediately. Quincy cleared the living room out right there with Brandon Tartikoff, the head of NBC, and Warren Littlefield sitting in the room waiting. Will asked Q to give him two weeks to find an acting coach so they could set up a proper audition instead of doing this impromptu thing. Quincy countered with a stark choice: take ten minutes right now to change your life forever while everyone who needed to say yes waited, or wait three weeks where it could be good or not. He even handed over a script from a failed pilot titled Mars Day and the Time for Will to read on the spot. It wasn't a planned meeting; Will had met Benny at the Arsenio Hall show previously, but this moment happened the night they arrived.
Transcript (en)
by Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Right. And he worked at Warner Records. He worked at Warner Records. And I met Quincy the night that Benny took me to Quincy's house to pitch me for the show. Wow. And it was, you know, walking in and, you know, seeing Quincy Jones. It was, I think he just won the Soul Train Lifetime Achievement Award or something like that. I was coming to his house after the show, and we met, and that night, he made me audition in the living room. That same night. That same night, I met him, I went for a party to talk, and he cleared the living room out, made me audition for the show, impromptu, out of nowhere. He had a script for an old Mars Day and the Time, a failed pilot for Mars Day and the Time. And he was like, hey, just read this script. Practice this. Go do this. And I auditioned in his living room at a party. That's insane. Yeah, he was like that, too. Did you, in that moment, what was your thought process? You know, so I just flew in. I thought it was a party for Quincy's house. And, you know, Benny Medina, I had met Benny at Arsenio. It was during the time that the Arsenio Hall show was like. the top of everything. Right. So, you know, I had gone broke after my first round of success. That happens. I heard about that. Yeah, yeah. You shouldn't do that. If you could at all avoid going broke after your first round of success, you should, I see it, Freudian slip, first round of excess. Yeah, yeah, right, right.
