Will power

With determination and smarts, Will Smith has achieved success as a rapper and superstardom on TV as the Fresh Prince--all by age 24. Now, with a new movie coming out in the summer, he's courting success on all entertainment fronts. Is this nineties renaissance man on his way to becoming Hollywood's fresh power prince?

Just as art mirrors life, life mirrors art. And just as The Fresh Prince of Bel Air television show mirrors Will Smith, Will Smith mirrors the show. On the situation comedy, fictional Will has moved from Philadelphia to live with his rich relatives in California; similarly, real-life Will has gone from Philly to Hollywood to pursue a career in entertainment. Meanwhile, both Wills, on-screen and off, are simultaneously the Fresh Prince, the brash rapper and the brilliant storyteller who serves as their alter ego, facilitating their fantasies, turning fairy tales into reality.

Playing with reality is Will Smith's speciality, his preoccupation. After all, it's the power of the Fresh Prince's imagination that has altered Smith's reality--first propelling him to rap prominence, then TV superstardom--even as he struggles to infuse his NBC show with a more street-rooted realism. As a 24-year-old in the midst of money-driven, power-based show business, Will struggles with the toughest of questions: When far-flung fantasy has been your ticket to fame, how do you stay real?

Now in its third season, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air is a resounding hit. The show was originally based on the life of Benny Medina, the Warner Brothers record executive who also serves as one of Smith's managers. "Will's creative instincts," says Medina, "have taken [focus] away from me and my background and turned the Will character into his own man. Now Will really is Will, reflecting all his personal charm and spontaneity. Young people sense his honesty. And because he's a pure product of the hip-hop generation, the Fresh Prince has emerged as a genuine comic hero, a warm and funny guy who speaks the language of young urban America."

The first time I encounter Smith in his dressing room, he radiates supreme confidence. His loose-limbed body language is relaxed. His breezy banter puts me at ease, although I wonder whether he's studying me as intensely as I'm studying him.