Will Smith

During the 1990s and the 2000s, Smith emerged as one of the world’s most successful leading men with roles in films such as Independence Day and Bad Boys. His box office streak of delivering eight consecutive films to have grossed more than $100 million in the US remains unmatched.

The lessons he learned along the way? “Fail early, fail often, fail forward,” he quoted a popular saying. “You fail your way to the top… I have been lucky enough to embrace failure,” Smith said about his success story.

The two-time Oscar nominee said this is possibly his 10th trip to India. “(I have) loved it here for a lot of years. The contrast was always so beautiful to me that at any street corner, you could cross a thousand years.”

Towards the end of the session, the Hollywood actor tried Bhangra, the Punjabi dance, by imitating the hand and shoulder gestures displayed Farhan Akhtar, the moderator of the session When asked if he had any plans for making his Bollywood debut, Smith said: “I am doing a show called the Bucket List... One of the things on the Bucket List was that I wanted to be dancing in a Bollywood sequence... I would love to do some work with Aishwarya (Rai Bachchan).”

He also paid tribute to legendary boxer Muhammad Ali, whose biopic – Ali – Smith starred in.

“Playing Ali was the most formative time in my career. It changed me forever. Anytime you go that far into a character, a piece just stays with you. Nothing for Ali was ever above people and love. In our lives we put money and our products above people. Ali taught us that if you care for people you will have everything.”

Smith has played the lead role in two other biopics, including The Pursuit of Happyness. “It is such a beautiful thing to have an opportunity as an actor to wear the skin of someone you admire so much,” he said.