Full text transcript of the 'I Am Legend' Unscripted with Will Smith and Francis Lawrence

Full text transcript of the 'I Am Legend' Unscripted with Will Smith and Francis Lawrence

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Will Smith: All right, Welcome to Moviefone's Unscripted. I'm Will Smith and this is director Francis Lawrence, director of 'I Am Legend.' We are going to ask questions to one another and there are some wild cards, Uno cards, that will come up and we'll get to ask each other random questions, you know stuff from our relationship, personal life, but we should probably stick to the movie though for our fans. We shouldn't let our personal relationship bleed into silliness on camera. What's the first one? It's from Will to Francis. This is a cool thing and I want to commend Moviefone on coolness. How does your version of 'I Am Legend' compare to the three other film versions of Richard Matheson's novel?

Francis Lawrence: Well this is actually the third version. There are only two other versions but I think that this movie is kind of a hybrid of the novel and the other two versions. We've modernized some of the ideas. We've taken some of the themes that have been in several different versions of the story and merged it into our own version. I think it was great because we got to apply our own ideas and what excited us about the other ideas and just the story in general.

Will Smith: And it was also a time when people couldn't see the level of a special effect that we can deliver now. You know in the seventies when they made the other versions, you couldn't see jet fighters take out a bridge.

Francis Lawrence: Sure, and you couldn't really get the scope in the city that we had. A lot used to be shot in the back lot, but now we can go on the streets of New York, and see all along Sixth Avenue, Fifth Avenue.

Will Smith: You did a great job with that by the way.

Francis Lawrence: If you were the last person on Earth, what would you do?

Will Smith: What would I do?

Francis Lawrence: That you can talk about on camera.

Will Smith: Well the first thing I would do would make me a nice ... you know that's always a tough question.

Francis Lawrence: "Make me a nice ...?"

Will Smith: I'm not getting in trouble. I'm trying to be professional. I think like ... it's such a necessity for hope for something to live. The only reason that we got out of the bed this morning was the hope of what the day had to offer. The hope that tomorrow is going to be better than today. The hope that today could be better than yesterday. In that scenario, as depicted in the film, I just can't imagine what I would find to hope for if all my friends are gone and everything. It would be like man listen let me go ahead and do a flyer off a bridge or something.

Francis Lawrence: Yeah, definitely and in that situation it would be so difficult to survive without any infrastructure. A day would be taken up with finding whatever needed to survive. Whether its growing food, finding water, you know maintaining wherever it is you live.

Will Smith: That's for sure. You gotta have one person at least. So Francis, what specifically focus did you have to capture the depth of Will Smith's sexiness? Like what did you do in his abdominal area, what were you able to do to capture the true sexiness?

Francis Lawrence: Well I had to find a really fantastic make-up effects company and we went and found a bunch of elite athletes and we sculpted prosthetic abdominal sections, put it on you and we rigged it so the harness under it that lifted you doing the chin-ups ...

Will Smith: That's really very very untrue.



Francis Lawrence: You've been in some really interesting science-fiction films like 'Independence Day,' 'I, Robot' and now 'I Am Legend.' What is it that draws you to this genre?

Will Smith: You know, the most fun I've ever had in a movie theater was when I first saw 'Star Wars' and I was just emotionally riveted and devastated at the same time. I couldn't believe that someone's mind created that. There's something about science fiction that just speaks to me. Going to other worlds and seeing creatures and spacecraft. My mind is so attracted to the creation of those places because of the feeling that I had as a little boy. It was almost spiritual watching 'Star Wars.' My entire career has been chasing 'Star Wars' in films and 'Thriller' in music. So every time you see me putting together a science fiction movie, know that I'm chasing 'Star Wars' and every time you the alien dancing in the music video, know that I'm chasing 'Thriller.'

Francis Lawrence: I know you like research. What kind of research did you do for this role?

Will Smith: There were POWs. You know I got transcripts from people who have been POWs. I've talked to Geranimo Pratt of the Black Panthers and he spent a few months in solitary confinement and he was talking about what happens to your mind in solitary confinement. The big thing that came out with everyone was the schedule. That's what everyone kept saying. When you are in that kind of situation, you need to create a schedule. Even if it's the type of schedule that's like "I'm going to clean my nails from 9AM to 11AM" and you take those two hours every morning and you clean your nails. There is some element of the schedule that helps you maintain sanity through purpose.

Francis Lawrence: What do you find more difficult in Hollywood, raising children or keeping your marriage healthy?

Will Smith: That's interesting. I would say that raising children is a much more difficult process just because there are so many unknown factors and things happen and you never know what kids are thinking and trying to establish a relationship where they talk and stay open but at the end of the day, they are their own people. But a healthy marriage is the best way that you can successfully raise children. For me, I haven't noticed it being any more difficult in Hollywood than anywhere else. I guess people who live other places would say that. For me, it's either you are disciplined or you're not.

Francis Lawrence: That's the thing I noticed about you that's really impressive. It's just your commitment to work in every aspect of your life including your family. From what I see, it wouldn't matter if you guys were in the outer edges of Alaska versus Hollywood. You would still be working just as hard to maintain your marriage and raising your children, which is an impressive thing.

Will Smith: Why thank you. It is rumored that you changed the ending of this film. If so, why?

Francis Lawrence: Well I don't want to talk too much of the ending because I want people to see the movie and not know what it happens. But I will say that we did tweak it but it was mostly because I wanted it to and we wanted it to land at an emotional place rather than an intellectual place and we felt it would be more satisfying and a better journey for our hero, for you.

Will Smith: Absolutely. We changed everything in this movie ten or fifteen times so it's .... We actually in the scope of things didn't change the ending. We tried to change the ending and decided that we would stay closer to the source material. Thank you Francis, Moviefone and to you for watching. Thank you for sending in your questions. How was that?

Francis Lawrence: That was good.

Will Smith: Any direction on that?

Francis Lawrence: Throw it away in the morning, just a little more natural, casual. Take the stank off of it.

Will Smith: Thank you Francis, and thank you Moviefone and all of you for watching. Please check out our film 'I Am Legend.' How was that?

Francis Lawrence: That was good, that was really good.

Will Smith: I sold it?

Francis Lawrence: You sold it.

Will Smith: Thank you and good night.