never had a friend like me

Aladdin: Dare to Gaze Upon Will Smith’s Version of the Genie

Director Guy Ritchie says the inspiration was “a muscular 1970s dad.”
Image may contain Human Person and Art
From Buena Vista/Everett Collectio

When Will Smith was announced as the Genie in Disney’s upcoming live-action remake of Aladdin, a few questions began percolating. Would he be C.G.I. so he could play the character with as much animated charm as Robin Williams? Would he be . . . blue? Or would he just be a normal, live-action, Will Smith-looking man dressed up in Agrabahn gear? Well, Entertainment Weekly has a first look at the Aladdin cast fully in character, Smith included, and it turns out the answer is the latter. Feast your eyes upon this:

X content

This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

Yes, that’s Smith as the Genie, going with the bold choice of a thick goatee with a little hair clip and a big bald head, save for a topknot festooned with another golden clip. Well, it appears to be a topknot until you see the shot of Smith’s profile, which reveals the topknot to be a surprisingly long ponytail. What’s impressive is he manages to have no hair and entirely too much hair all at once!

X content

This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

Most Popular

According to Smith, the image in the E.W. spread isn’t the final version of the character. “I’m gonna be BLUE,” he wrote in an Instagram caption. Per E.W., the film isn’t finished, so the final rendering of the Genie is not yet available, but director Guy Ritchie teased that the new version of the Genie will look like “a muscular 1970s dad” (and not, say, a modern version of Sinbad in Shazam, if Shazam were real).

“He was big enough to feel like a force—not so muscular that he looked like he was counting his calories, but formidable enough to look like you knew when he was in the room,” Ritchie said of his inspiration. Which, again, was 1970s dads. Dads from all other eras, back off, this isn’t about you.

Smith also spoke about the role, saying it was “terrifying” to take on the character after Williams’s iconic performance in the original Aladdin.

“The question is always: where was there meat left on the bone? Robin didn’t leave a lot of meat on the bone with the character,” he added. However, the actor decided to give a performance that was an homage to Williams but musically divergent.

“I think it’ll stand out as unique even in the Disney world,” Smith said. “There hasn’t been a lot of that hip-hop flavor in Disney history.”

More Great Stories from Vanity Fair

– Is this the end of peak TV?

— R.B.G.: What On the Basis of Sex gets wrong

— Why The Mule feels like Clint Eastwood’s magnum opus

— The rise and fall of the scumbro in 2018 — Is Netflix really too big to fail?

Looking for more? Sign up for our daily Hollywood newsletter and never miss a story.

You’ve Got Mail’s Stealthy Star Power: 8 Featured Actors You May Have Forgotten

  • Image may contain Dave Chappelle Clothing Apparel Human Person Door Sleeve Suit Coat Overcoat and Long Sleeve
  • Image may contain Human Person Sara Ramirez Bar Counter and Pub
  • Image may contain Human Person Indoors Furniture Library Room Book Bookcase Bookstore Shop Shelf and Pub
1 / 8
From Warner Bros/Everett Collection.
Dave Chappelle
You may remember Chappelle better than most of the other actors on this list; he played Joe Fox’s best friend, Kevin, and therefore logged a little more screen time than, say, Chris Messina (whom we’ll get to in a few). Chappelle’s shining moment? Being the first to find out that Joe’s online crush, “Shopgirl,” is, in fact, his competitor, Kathleen Kelly. As he tells Joe seconds later, “If you don’t like Kathleen Kelly, I can tell you right now: you ain’t gonna like this girl.”