Actors who have worked with Will Smith often rave about his incredible work ethic. In fact, Smith himself has famously quoted very early in his career that he does not think of himself as especially talented but instead as someone who works insanely hard to achieve his goals. A perfect example of that dedication is the unique tricks he uses to stay on top of his game. But not everything he does makes sense to his co-stars. In fact, one of his Bad Boys co-stars recently opened up about a quirky habit of Smith’s that was a little too distracting on the sets. 

Will Smith, apparently, has a super strange technique that helps him remember all his lines—and deliver them at just the right moment.

Retired NBA player John Salley, who acted alongside Will Smith in three of the four Bad Boys movies, recently opened up about working with the actor. In an episode of the Fast Break podcast with Byron Scott, Salley shared that Smith is so intense about his craft that it can be distracting. "You can’t look at him," Salley said because Smith is always mouthing lines—not just his own but other people’s too. “That’s how he remembers it.” This was not the first time Smith’s quirky acting habit had come up.

During HBO’s 2020 Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Reunion, his former co-stars Tatyana Ali and Karyn Parsons also talked about Smith's habit of mouthing their lines during live tapings of the sitcom. Clearly, this method of his has been around for a long time, and while it may seem odd to others, it clearly works for Smith. Still, despite all his tricks and dedication, there are some things he has learned the hard way to avoid.

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Will Smith had a very risky experience with method acting in 1993, following which he vowed to never do it again. 

Will Smith once tried his hand at method acting while filming Six Degrees of Separation, but it did not go as planned. In his memoir, Will, the actor admitted that his dive into method acting had some pretty wild and unexpected consequences. In the movie, Smith’s character falls for Stockard Channing’s character, and the I Am Legend star took his job so seriously that he ended up falling for the actress offscreen too. This might not sound like a big deal, but at the time, Smith had just become a dad to his son Trey with his then-wife, Sheree Zampino.

"After the film wrapped...our marriage was off to a rocky start," Smith wrote in his memoir. The method acting did not do his personal life any favors. While Smith does have some quirky acting habits—like mouthing other people’s lines or completely losing himself in his roles—if there is one thing one can count on, blindly, is that his commitment to the craft is second to none.

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What do you think about John Salley's interview? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!