Robin Williams’ Genie exploded onto screens in a mad frenzy of puns, songs and pop-culture references in 1992. His performance captured lightning in a bottle, and it was as mesmerizing as it was hilarious.
As with any role that’ was previously occupied by Williams, the next genie of Aladdin’s lamp has some massive, curly-toed shoes to fill.
Will Smith stepped up for the role of Genie in Disney’s 2019 remake. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, he revealed that upon his first meeting with executives regarding the role, he instinctively performed the legendary song “Friend like me” before even deciding whether to accept it.
When asked how he felt about taking on the role of Genie after Robin Williams, he talked about tapping into his 90’s roles such as Men In Black, Independence Day, Bad Boys and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
“The Genie had been forward and backwards in time, so because the Genie knew all things from all time, the references and the way that he spoke and the energy that he brought to the character was of a specific era of Robin Williams. I wanted to do that and I really picked that period, the 1990 to 1996 period of what people most remember of the arc that I had created and tried to build a character that lived in that time and space, so it felt nostalgic but also new.”
“The question is always, where was there meat left on the bone, and with the Robin Williams character, Robin didn’t leave a lot of meat on the bone. For me, the first aspect was it was live action, so that meant it would look and feel really different, so I was encouraged by that.”
It was then that the lightbulb went off in Smith’s mind: hip-hop. There hasn’t been a whole lot of hip-hop content in Disney’s background, and his goal was to infuse it into his role while still paying respects to the work that Williams left behind.
I started to feel confident that I could deliver something that was an homage to Robin Willians but was musically different and just the flavor of the character would be different enough and unique enough that it would be in a different lane versus trying to compete.
The 90’s are definitely coming back in summer 2019. Are you excited to see Will Smith take over the Genie, or do you feel that Robin Williams is the be-all-end-all of all things Genie?