Will Smith reportedly almost missed out on his role in the 1996 blockbuster Independence Day because he’s a “Black guy”.
The film’s screenwriter Dean Devlin and director Roland Emmerich recently spoke to The Hollywood Reporter to celebrate its 25th anniversary.
Within the interview, the pair recalled how they fought to cast Smith alongside Jeff Goldblum.
“The one character we had in our mind from day one was Jeff Goldblum,” Devlin said.
“As we were working on the script, I would do my Jeff Goldblum imitation. Then we were basing his father [Judd Hirsch’s Julius] off of my grandfather, who was also named Julius.”
Emmerich added: “Ethan Hawke was on our list too, but I thought at that time he was too young.”
“It was pretty clear it had to be Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum. That was the combo we thought. The studio said, ‘No, we don’t like Will Smith. He’s unproven. He doesn’t work in international [markets].’”
Looking back on the conversations with 20th Century Fox at the time, Devlin went on: “They said, ‘You cast a Black guy in this part, you’re going to kill foreign [box office]’. Our argument was, ‘Well, the movie is about space aliens. It’s going to do fine foreign.’
“It was a big war, and Roland really stood up for [Smith] — and we ultimately won that war.”
We know we’re certainly glad that Smith was eventually cast, as the film served as one of the first major movie roles that helped catapult him to worldwide fame.
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Check out a clip of Will Smith in Independence Day:
