HOW WILL RECLAIMED HIMSELF

Oscar winner reveals his softer side at the Sharjah International Book Fair

- By Manjusha Radhakrishnan

Scar-winning Hollywood actor Will Smith didn't begin his session at the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) 2025 by talking about movies or fame. Instead, he started with a confession: he has been trying to reclaim himself.

"Suddenly, we wake up one day and our self-esteem depends on other people saying we're good enough," he told an auditorium filled with fans who had squeezed into the Expo Centre to hear him speak.

"For me, over the past couple of years, it has been the process of taking back my self-esteem from the world."

That tone — introspective, vulnerable and unexpectedly philosophical — shaped his entire conversation.

QUIET TRANSFORMATION

The audience, who had already erupted into cheers when Smith appeared in a white shirt and warm grin, quickly realised this was not going to be a simple celebrity Q&A. It was closer to a public reckoning, one shaped by the years he described as "quiet transformation."

At the core of that transformation was a book he didn't initially expect to change him: his 2021 memoir Will. What he thought would be a documentation of his journey became, instead, a mirror.