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Hollywood star Will Smith was reduced to tears during a moment of self-discovery with monks in a remote Asian monastery in his new TV show. The seven-part documentary series Pole to Pole with Will Smith, which launches on National Geographic Channel and Disney+ next month, is the actor’s second comeback project since he slapped Oscars host Chris Rock in March 2022.
And the Pursuit of Happyness star addresses his own search for inner peace during a poignant, personal moment in a scene in which he sits cross-legged in meditation with monks in the tiny, remote country of Bhutan in the Himalayas. One of them later explains to the Men In Black actor that happiness is understanding that nothing is permanent and everything changes, adding: “We can be rich and poor. Sometimes we can be popular and sometimes not.”
Wiping away tears, Smith, 57, responds: “I know about that personally. I tasted the top of my success, fame, money and then watched it fall apart. I’m trying to find ways to stop worrying about that.”
In a moving scene, he adds: “For most of my life, I’ve had absolute purpose, I was striving to be the biggest movie star in the world. I set very high standards for myself, signing every autograph and shaking every hand and kissing every baby. But it certainly didn’t turn out as I had planned.” The monk tells him: “When we encounter a very bad moment or incident in our lives, there is no other way to find happiness than within yourself.”
Any lasting attachment to such an incident, he adds, will never lead to peace.
Smith again has to brush away a tear as he replies: “So if I’m trying to hold on to these things so hard – that becomes the actual source of my unhappiness. That’s pretty accurate.”
His only other project since his Oscar slap was last year’s movie sequel Bad Boys 4 and Pole to Pole finds him crossing all seven continents in 100 days as he explores some of the most extreme places and challenges on Earth.
The show launches on Nat Geo on January 13 and will stream the following day worldwide on Apple+.
