The Real Reason Hollywood Won't Cast Jaden Smith

It's probably difficult for any of us to understand the unique childhood of Jaden Smith. Being the son of WIll Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, the actor, musician, and fashion icon grew up in one of Hollywood's most famous and powerful families. When he was just 8 years old, his father had him audition a staggering number of times for "The Pursuit of Happyness," a drama that would ultimately serve as his feature film debut — as well as the first time Will and Jaden Smith co-starred. In the years that followed the film's success, it seemed as though the next plan for Camp Smith was to turn Jaden into a movie star who could one day outshine his father.

Yet for someone with such connections and unmatched resources, he is surprisingly far from achieving this goal as of writing — if it's still on the horizon at all. Since the release of 2013's "After Earth," Jaden Smith's presence in the film industry has been muted. To some observers, it can seem as though he walked away from his path to stardom entirely, now just one of many actors who may have ended their career with one good movie. The truth, however, is far more complicated and requires a deeper look both into his impressive yet limited filmography, as well as the unconventional choices he's made in the past decade.

The importance of critical reviews to an actor's career is an unfortunate truth of the film industry. Even before the age of Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, a critically panned project could easily damage a fledgling star's hopes of making it to the next level, or be used retroactively alongside a string of critical misses to dismiss their credibility as an entertainer. "The Pursuit of Happyness" did alright critically, though it arguably wouldn't have had much of an impact either way (he was, after all, only 8 years old and made up for what he might have lacked in acting chops by looking like Will Smith's actual child). For his future in the industry, however, each film following would matter more and more — especially since his father's star shone so bright that Jaden Smith's presence in any film would be noticed.

At 10, Smith was cast as Jacob Benson Jr., the child of Jennifer Connelly's Helen Benson in "The Day the Earth Stood Still." The 2008 remake starred Keanu Reeves, himself wading through something of a critical slump following "The Matrix." Sadly for both Reeves and Smith, the science fiction film drew a harsh response from film reviewers, who broadly felt it to be lacking in terms of story and performance (though Reeves shouldered the blame for the latter). To this day, it is regarded as one of Reeves' worst movies. But even if it wasn't the hit needed to elevate Smith's career at the time, the young actor did manage to get a Saturn Award for best performance by a younger actor, shockingly beating out "Slumdog Millionaire" star Dev Patel.

"The Pursuit of Happyness" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still" were opportunities for Jaden Smith to gather at least some experience as a young supporting film actor before he would be thrown into the deep end with a starring role at the age of 12. Leading up to its eventual release in 2010, parents Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith joined the production team of Columbia Pictures' "The Karate Kid," transparently reworking it so that Jaden Smith could use the remake to become a movie star in his own right.

Smith was given the role of Dre Parker, a character very loosely based on Ralph Macchio's Daniel LaRusso from the original 1984 film. Unlike the latter, who actually learns the titular Japanese martial art from karate master Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita), Dre learns the Chinese martial art of kung fu from Jackie Chan's Mr. Han. In other words, there is no karate in 2010's "The Karate Kid." Such changes from the original were part of the reason the film received lukewarm reviews, as was its two-hour-plus runtime.

Some critics seemed sold on Smith as a leading man (if seemingly grading on a curve in some cases), while others were less convinced. He was often compared to his father, though the comparison was far from unanimously positive. Furthermore, it appears that Smith won't be joining Chan and Macchio in the franchise's next film, which is reportedly set for release in 2025. Despite the fact Smith won a young artist award for his role as Dre, whatever future it was seemingly supposed to secure has yet to extend beyond 2010.

Three movies are in, and Jaden Smith's career is already in a strange place. He has yet to star in a certified hit and has so far landed only one feature film without the direct influence of his parents (and that's ignoring the fact that Jada Pinkett-Smith and Keanu Reeves starred in two "Matrix" sequels). His next move was arguably his most important so far, as it would dictate for the foreseeable future whether he genuinely had the makings of a movie star himself or was simply the lucky son of one. Had this been the feeling (or some part of it) at Camp Smith following "The Karate Kid," it's hard to imagine a larger misstep than "After Earth." Or, rather, it's hard to imagine one now, but it won't be in about two sentences.

Years after the success of "The Pursuit of Happyness," Will Smith decided to once again cast himself and Jaden as father and son, this time in a sci-fi survival thriller. If this weren't already an obvious recipe for career stagnation at best, Will Smith made the baffling decision to ask M. Night Shyamalan to direct — a call he made one week after the release of his disastrous "The Last Airbender" adaptation, a film that is to this day his worst-received project.

When it was finally released in 2013, "After Earth" was critically panned. And Jaden Smith — now older and more familiar to audiences as a leading man — began drawing criticism without qualifiers based on age or experience. Though the sci-fi flop regularly kills it on Netflix, Will Smith has since described it as one of his biggest career mistakes, particularly because he feels responsible for putting his son in such a damaging position.

The critical and commercial failure of "After Earth" is heartbreaking in many ways, chief among them that it debatably prevented Jaden Smith from stepping outside his father's shadow as an actor. To the most cynical, casual observer watching the young actor's career trajectory up to that point, it seemed that Will Smith had merely tried to force his son into the spotlight with no success. Given how close together "The Karate Kid" and "After Earth" were, it looks as though he never had a chance to develop on his own, to audition and make connections for a few years on a (still dramatically expedited) journey toward his own place in the acting world.

Instead, the Smiths lined up back-to-back big-budget projects that would need to generate several hundred million dollars in box office revenue to justify themselves, much less Jaden Smith's stardom. Because neither reached that level of success, the entire early stage of Jaden's career can seem less like the efforts of an aspiring actor and more like the failed machinations of his father.

As time goes on, it looks like the term "nepo baby" (referring to the children of celebrities who receive enviable careers in adjacent or identical industries) is here to stay. Smith never would have been immune to its use, but had his father not been so closely tied to his most high-profile projects, it wouldn't be a term one could use to dismiss them.

On the lighter side of things relating to his career as an actor, Jaden Smith began drawing mixed attention in the late 2010s for his habit of posting bizarre — and often hilarious — tweets. On X, formerly known as Twitter, he was once infamous for posting cryptic statements and personal maxims, with each word notably capitalized. Classic posts from this era include "I Don't Want You Guys To Think Because I Was Born In America That I Speak And Abide By English Grammar. I Speak Jaden, Indefinitely," as well as, "All Of Your Idols Are Going To Start Writing Their Own Articles, And These Uninformed 'Journalists' Will Become Obsolete." (Admittedly, we as an editorial outlet might be slightly biased against the latter.)

While these statements — and claims such as "The Biggest Flex Anyone Will Ever Have Is Dying" and "If Newborn Babies Could Speak They Would Be The Most Intelligent Beings On Planet Earth" — are entirely harmless if not simple jokes, they've been wrapped into Smith's broader interest in conspiracy theories. In an interview with HuffPost, he opined that a civilization of technologically advanced humans exists on Earth, saying, "The technology that we're currently at is not the maximum of the human capability ... there are places in the world where their technology supersedes what we see here on a daily basis. It's made by humans, and it should be acknowledged, and it should be looked at because it could heal a lot of problems." 

The interviewer offered that the places sounded like Wakanda from "Black Panther," to which Jaden agreed. He has at various points also expressed beliefs in extraterrestrials, the uselessness of traditional education, secret orders like the Illuminati, and government production of chemtrails.

Inarguably the biggest reason why Jaden Smith isn't working more as an actor is that he's diverted his attention to other artistic pursuits — and seen considerable success while doing so. After debuting on Justin Bieber's "Never Say Never," he built an impressive career as a musical artist. In addition to the "Cool Tape" trilogy, he has released two more studio albums titled "Syre" and "Erys." With help from Will Smith's management company Westbrook Entertainment, he has proved to be a commercially viable musician, and he has worked with industry heavy hitters like J. Cole and Tyler, the Creator.

Critically, his work is consistently divisive, often focusing on high-concept narratives and genre experimentation. Most reviewers praise his boundless creativity and criticize his struggle for musical cohesion. "At best, it's dreamily creative; at worst, overwrought," wrote The Guardian's Tara Joshi of his 2019 effort "Erys." In a 4.7 out of 10 review for Pitchfork, Reed Jackson described the same album as "mostly a slog, the sound of an artist with a blurry vision and too many resources at his disposal."

In 2022, during the 94th Academy Awards, Will Smith struck comedian Chris Rock on live television. The physical altercation began with Rock joking about Jada Pinkett Smith's shaved head and ended in a brief but angry and deeply discomforting back-and-forth between the two as Smith shouted at him from the audience. Smith went on to win best actor that night and later apologized to Rock for the outburst. He was banned from attending Academy events for 10 years.

In reaction to the slap, Jaden Smith tweeted "And That's How We Do It," seemingly supporting his father's decision to charge the stage and strike Rock. Though there were some voices online that felt Rock had overstepped by laughing at Pinkett Smith — who had been publicly sharing her journey with a form of alopecia (a condition that causes hair loss) — the general consensus especially among industry professionals was that Smith had no right to assault another entertainer over a joke.

While likely no one was expecting any of the Smiths to immediately denounce their father or husband, Jaden's approval had the potential to rub powerful industry professionals the wrong way. After all, many of them were taking the display of violence and lack of immediate punishment to logical extremes from their perspective, drawing comparisons to attempted murder and the acceptance of genocidal dictators. Hyperbole or not, this attitude indicates it probably wasn't the most media-savvy move for Smith at the time.

As proven time and time again throughout this piece, Jaden Smith is not one to shy away from sharing his honest opinion on just about anything. This became a somewhat major problem when the actor was accused of disparaging the People's Republic of China.

According to the Global Times, allegations began spreading on the Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu on August 19, 2023. They accused Smith of having made derogatory comments about the country to fans while riding on a public train in Tokyo, Japan. His remarks reportedly included the phrase "F*** China." The incident was not recorded, leading some to question the validity of the allegations entirely. It would be fairly surprising to learn that Smith held strong negative opinions about the country as a whole, given his presence in the region — "The Karate Kid" was a joint venture between Hollywood and Hong Kong studios, and he has performed at venues in China numerous times.

Curiously enough, however, the allegations preceded Smith unexpectedly delaying musical performances in China without explanation. Though he did not address the post on Xiaohongshu, it had gone viral, and negative sentiment toward him from Chinese fans eventually found its way into his Instagram comments (which he quickly turned off). It's worth stressing that Smith has neither confirmed nor denied making the alleged remarks and may have canceled the show dates for an unrelated personal reason. Even so, the narrative spreading among his large Chinese fanbase doesn't seem as charitable.

Because of how long Jaden Smith has been in the spotlight, it's incredibly easy to forget one crucial fact — he's only 26 years old as of this writing. Sure, Will Smith was only 22 years old when he landed "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air," but if there's anything a reader should take away from this article it's that it's fairly useless to compare the two entertainers given how different their circumstances were.

As Jaden Smith has articulated himself in past interviews, he and his father essentially experienced inverted career trajectories. Will started his journey as a talented musician but didn't really start exploring his full potential until he started acting. As of yet, Jaden's beginnings as a fairly decent if overexposed actor seem to be leading him toward a unique musical identity that's all his own — and with only three albums out so far, there's nothing to suggest that he's reached his full potential in this area either.

This isn't to say that Jaden has chosen one path definitively over the other. He's taken sizable roles in smaller, less financially risky projects like 2018's "Skate Kitchen" and 2020's "Life in a Year," both of which performed better critically than any of his first four films. Just because he's no longer leading $100 million blockbusters doesn't mean he's no longer an actor. In fact, he's arguably found himself in a more promising position than he's ever been in. While he may be one of Will Smith's best co-stars, that prestige is only so meaningful compared to this new journey of discovering his own voice, style, and artistry in his own time.