Jaden Smith: "I always wanted to train with Jackie Chan. This was just like doing it. But I also worked out with a Chinese kung fu trainer about four hours a day for three months before, then all during the movie, and I still do."
"Sometimes I see people and I'm like, ‘Do you know how to sew, cause I'm ripped!'" he says, with total deadpan delivery, another skill he's aced.
12-year-old Jaden: "I don't like movies that make you cry. But if girls like dramas, then I'll do it!"
Describing what it's like to have a sassy younger sibling, Jaden says of Willow, "We're very cool, except for the fact that she hates my guts. She always has to be the boss."
The big difference between them?
J.S.: "She wishes she was 18, but I like being the age I am. And I listen to people older than me. They tell me it sucks to get older. So I'm happy being a kid."
His dad walks into the trailer to make sure everything is going okay. "Runs in the family," Will says, after being told Jaden is a good interview. "We even do some skits together to freak people out. We won't tell them we're jivin' them. But I always crack up—and he stays deadpan. His comic timing is pretty good, almost better than mine."
"It is better than yours," his son retorts. When Jaden won the Breakthrough Male Star of the Year award at the Showest convention in Las Vegas in March, Will gave him a comic speech to learn and deliver from the stage. "So I got up there," Jaden explains, "and I said, ‘My dad gave me a three-page speech to say but I'm not gonna do it, even though it was funny, cause I'm a little scared. So I'm just gonna be me." The theater owners laughed, and Will, hearing this, looks at his offspring with awe.
"This kid is funnier than I was at his age," he chuckles. "But then, he did have me as a father."