Will Smith felt "trapped" being himself.
The ‘Aladdin’ actor – who has son Trey, 26, from a previous relationship and Jaden, 20, and Willow, 18, with wife Jada Pinkett Smith – has a "wonderful" life and career but felt restricted in what he could do in public so created a ‘bucket list’ when he turned 50 in order to reclaim some "freedom".
Will – who has already ticked skydiving, Bollywood dancing, supercar racing and swimming with sharks from his bucket list – told talk show host Graham Norton: "A huge part of my childhood was marked by fear and a huge part of my drive in life was marked by fear.
"You can generate great things, you can succeed and win, but you can never really be happy if you’re scared.
"I’d turned 50 and I’d created this wonderful life and this wonderful career, but I felt trapped by being Will Smith – I have kids so I can’t do that, or I’m famous so I can’t say that, or people look at me so I can’t behave like that – so part of the bucket list was to give myself the freedom to do all of the things that I had put in my mind that I couldn’t do.
"I’m now being adventurous, and I’ve always wanted to be that."
While he’s embracing being more adventurous in his life, the ‘Suicide Squad’ star still exercises caution with his career and admits he worries about getting too "deep" into a character in case it changes him for good.
Discussing Octavia Spencer’s role in horror movie ‘Ma’, he said: "I’m really scared of roles like that because sometimes when you go really deep into character some stuff can stick.
"I was offered ‘Django Unchained’ but one of the reasons I turned it down was because I worried what it would do to me."
The full interview with Will airs on ‘The Graham Norton Show’ on BBC1 on Friday (10.05.19) night.
Will Smith felt trapped
