Originally Published: 2006-12-17

Italian filmmaker Gabriele Muccino makes his English-language Hollywood debut with The Pursuit of Happyness, starring Will Smith. In fact it was Oscar-nominated Smith who handpicked Muccino for the job after he was introduced to him by his Hitch co-star Eva Mendes, who had starred in The Last Kiss, the English-language remake of Muccino's L'Ultimo Bacio.
The Pursuit of Happyness is the true story of Chris Gardner (Smith), a down on his luck father who accepts an unpaid intern position at a prestigious stock brokerage firm in hopes of giving his five-year-old son (Smith's real son, Jaden Christopher Syre Smith) a better life. Despite having to spend nights in a homeless shelter with his son, Chris never falters in his determination to do everything in his power to make sure his son knows how much he's loved.
Tandem talked to Will Smith about The Pursuit of Happyness.

What did you learn in making The Pursuit of Happyness?
"I'm at such a different place in my life right now. The opportunity to work with Jaden... Michael Mann (Ali) opened my mind to a completely different way of working and creating, and it's grown through this process now with Gabriele Muccino. The last little spark coming from Jaden. I connected with Chris Gardner. We looked in one another's eyes. I said, 'I'm going to learn your story and I'm going to tell your story.' And he said, 'Just tell the truth.' I went and found the truth. I have so many roadblocks, emotional roadblocks to the truth of characters because I know what a character needs to do to be likeable. My son has just developed me to a space where I'm starting to understand and starting to be more comfortable with the idea that the things that you don't do well are the things that are really going to help people. It's new for me and I haven't completely figured out how to articulate all the things that are in my mind, but I'm excited right now about the connection between the things that I believe and now being able to find a way to illustrate those beliefs in my artistry."

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