Will Smith Says He Brought His 'Fresh Prince' Persona To New Version of Genie in 'Aladdin'

Will Smith chats with reporters during the press conference for Aladdin in Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon (May 19).

The 50-year-old actor joined Naomi Scott, Mena Massoud, Nasim Pedrad, Navid Negahban, plus production designer Gemma Jackson, composer Alan Menken, and director Guy Ritchie to chat up the movie ahead of the premiere this week.

In a recent interview, Will opened up about how he approached an iconic character like the Genie for the flick, all while trying to honor Robin Williams, who voiced the character in the animated film.

“Robin Williams didn’t leave much room to improve on the Genie. … So I looked at it and the first thing for me was that it was going to be live action. I thought it could be a little different,” he shared.

Will added, “Robin Williams … took his essentially stand-up persona and just infused his stand-up persona into the Genie. … I was like I could just use the extreme version of almost my ‘Fresh Prince’ persona to be able to infuse that into this wild character.”

“I felt I’d be able to capture the nostalgia while at the same time being able to make something new.”

Aladdin hits theaters on Friday, May 24th.

FYI: Naomi is wearing Balmain. Mena is wearing an AllSaints bomber jacket.