While many people are mum about their relationships, we can always count on Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith to keep it one-hun-don with us and share all the highs and lows of their lives. While it was Jada last week, Will opened up and gave insight into his previous marriage to Sheree Zampino.
In an exclusive excerpt from his upcoming memoir, ‘Will,’ the actor shares that he once fell in love with his then co-star, Stockard Channing, of ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ while married to Sheree.
He wrote, “Sheree and I were in the first few months of our marriage with a brand-new baby and for Sheree, I can imagine that this experience was unsettling to say the least.” Will continued to explain that Sheree was living with the character he portrayed for the film, “She’d married a guy named Will Smith, and now she was living with a guy named Paul Poitier.” He then stated, “And to make matters worse, during shooting, I fell in love with Stockard Channing.”
Will also expressed that he wanted to see Channing after filming had wrapped. “Our marriage was off to a rocky start. I found myself desperately yearning to see and speak to Stockard.”
Though Will fell in love with Channing, their relationship remained professional. Will spoke about his feelings for the actress in a 2015 interview with Esquire.
“With Six Degrees of Separation, I got a taste early of the dangers of going too far for a character.” He continued, “My character was in love with Stockard Channing’s character. And I actually fell in love with Stockard Channing.”
He contributed the way he was feeling to method acting, a technique in which an actor aspires to complete emotional identification with a part, according to Oxford Languages.
Will also went on to say that it’s a “really dangerous place when you get good at it.” Adding, he would spend “six and seven and eight days in character before shooting, and you have to be careful with that.”
Channing responded to the 2015 interview and stated she was “flattered” that Will developed those feelings, according to Page Six.
Roomies, what do you think of this?
