Next Big Thing: ‘Bel-Air’ Star Jabari Banks on How He’s Putting a “Fresh” Spin on an Iconic Namesake
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Jabari Banks calls his road to Bel-Air, Peacock’s dramatic take on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, a combination of hard work and “just being lucky.”
Playing a character named Will Smith — a young Black teen who goes to live with his aunt Vivian Banks’ family in California, after getting into a not-so-little fight that scares his mother — is the actor’s first onscreen role.
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“As soon as I learned I booked the show, I was in California in two days. After that week, we flew to Philly and we started filming. I’ve been filming ever since,” says the 23-year-old, who calls the part a “blessing.”
Premiering Feb. 13, the show, he says, is being meticulously crafted with its legacy in mind, to deliver a “fresh” story that expands the original’s conversations around issues like class and race.
The actor says the reboot series reframes Will’s arrival to the Banks’ mansion and how his own Black experience relates to theirs. “Sometimes people see it as you get a little bit of money and you’re losing your Blackness,” he says. “That’s kind of how the first show played in a comedic way. For this, it was, let’s start opening up those conversations.”
The character of Will is a part that Banks has been unknowingly preparing for his entire life. Born and raised in West Philadelphia, he grew up with a cherished six-season box set of the iconic ’90s comedy. It was a defining force of pop culture for him, even though it ran before he was born.
“I remember hearing stories about how The Fresh Prince would air and everything would shut down,” he says of weekly gatherings in his hometown. “Everybody just watched the episode and the next day were talking about it.”
Growing up in the city, playing baseball, football, soccer and (yes) basketball as a kid, Banks made the pivot into acting during 11th grade. It was something he’d always longed to do, despite having few resources around him.
“I joined the theater club in my school without really knowing the lingo,” he says. “I definitely felt like a fish out of water.”
Returning to Philadelphia years later to film the show’s pilot was a “meta” experience for the young actor, who had just a year earlier been working in Temecula, California, in a factory job his mother had found for him.
“I know the streets, so it was definitely a little weird,” he says of passing stores and public transit stops in his old stomping ground, a city that’s “still breathing and running and driving” in the same way, regardless of his own new perspective. “With the whole [Bel-Air] crew there, and they’re fish out of water now — yeah, it was dope,” he recalls, laughing.
Regardless of which coast he’s filming on, though, Banks says he and the cast have been given “leeway to put our own experiences” into the characters. That’s helped everyone, including himself, feel supported in the highly anticipated, and potentially highly scrutinized, endeavor.
“We already knew what this show means to our culture and us as individuals,” Banks says. “We definitely feel the responsibility to take care of these characters and craft them and mold them in a way that will be exciting and fresh for the audience to watch.”
In a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, Banks talks more about his first onscreen role, how he put his spin on Will, and how Bel-Air — which is based on Morgan Cooper’s 2019 short film — will examine race and class in a different way than its predecessor.
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air aired before you were born. What was your relationship to the show before getting this role?
Yeah, the show was off the air, and they had wrapped season six before I was even born. I remember The Fresh Prince being the first show that I watched where I realized what entertainment was. It’s been such a defining factor for me in my life and how I see the world — of going about life kind of in the sense that Will did, with ease and always wanting to make people laugh, finding joy in that laughter, and what that laughter means for people. That is always what I’ve wanted to do and why I wanted to pursue the arts.
Courtesy of Irvin Rivera
Playing Will is your first onscreen credit. For you, why is this the right first role, particularly in terms of how you see yourself as an actor?
In August 2020, I worked in Temecula, California, in a factory job that my mom had found. August 28 was the day that Chadwick Boseman died, and I remember when that happened, I said I really want to honor him and his legacy with what he did portraying these characters — these amazing roles and these iconic figures. The next year, same day — August 28, 2021 — I booked this role. I didn’t take that lightly. I don’t believe anything happens without reason, so I was just like, this is my time, my chance. I feel like Will is so close to me and my personal experiences. There are so many parallels between my life and his life. It feels as if it’s not such a stretch as an actor. I’m really learning the ropes, what it means to act on camera, the language, the logistics. This is such a blessing to be able to play on this level and to be proof that dreams really do come true. There are so many hard-working people out here, and they’re dedicated. I was also dedicated and put in my time, but the truth is I got lucky, and so I want other people to see they have that opportunity, too.
In the pilot, there is an homage to the Fresh Prince theme song. What were you feeling while filming that?
I was definitely a little shook when I read that in the script. I was like, “Oh no, they didn’t. No, they didn’t.” (Laughs.) Doing it, I just had to lean into the reality of the situation and the stakes — how Will is trying to cover up in that moment. It wasn’t a little fight, but he’s trying to play it down for Aunt Viv[ian Banks] there.
There’s a heavy focus on fashion, which was pretty definitive in The Fresh Prince. What were the conversations like about how your version of Will would stylistically appear?
There were so many conversations had about what fashion means to the show. The original Will was rocking the newest stuff, and people hadn’t really seen that like that on TV before. So we made a point to have it be a mark in the show. I think some of it’s going to be super familiar and is going to resonate with the sneakerhead community and the basketball community with what Will is wearing. They definitely let me put my mark on it, and it’s going to evolve as the episodes go on. I hope one day to have as many sneakers as Will. (Laughs.)
In terms of your performance, how were you thinking about making this character yours, and — if at all — an homage to Smith?
I believe that they chose me for me, so I’m leaning into my instincts, leaning into my experiences. They believe in me, and they believe in my words and in the power in that. And Will really set us up to succeed. So, I definitely feel like I’m taking the Will character and forming my own experiences around it in this new light and this new era. It’s going to be a little different, and that’s exciting for everybody to watch. We think we know who Will is, and I’m super excited to be able to expand on that and to leave my footprint. They didn’t think that Will would pick up the gun and shoot it in the air, right? But that’s my Will, and that’s something that I’ve been excited for — to change people’s idea of who Will is even though he’s such a beloved character.
The whole cast is in your position. Have you had any conversations with them about taking on these characters with so much history and legacy?
Going into this whole process, we already knew the weight of what we were doing. We all grew up on the show, so we don’t take this lightly. We’re standing on broad shoulders. We’ve had a lot of conversations, and we’re being very meticulous about how we expand on these dynamic characters and relationships. The conversations we’ve been having have also been needed since the show ended.
Courtesy of Evans Vestal Ward/Peacock
One particularly dynamic relationship is Carlton and Will’s. The Fresh Prince frequently saw them on opposite sides of an issue, but Bel-Air brings a different intensity to that. How do you and Olly Sholotan work to deliver these scenes?
He’s an amazing scene partner, but Olly is my brother, first and foremost. When I got to L.A., I literally had no clue where I was going, and I had to find a place to live. He was like, “I’ll just drive you around L.A., I’ll take you to every neighborhood, and we’ll see.” That just really showed me who he is as a person. We got to a level of comfortability. We hang out on- and off-set — we’re really good friends. Having that level of comfort just opens up the space for all different types of dynamics that we can show onscreen. It’s definitely a safe place for us to play, and we’re both very playful. We want to see how far we can take this Will and Carlton dynamic. In the first episode, it’s something, and in the last, something completely different. So it’s super exciting for everyone to see them grow as cousins and as brothers; for them to get into like their Will and Carlton silly situations and crazy adventures. That’s going to be so exciting for everyone to see and to witness again. I think those are some of my favorite episodes from The Fresh Prince, when Will and Carlton are just getting into shitty situations.
The Fresh Prince, as a comedy, wraps its serious conversations in humor. But as a drama, Bel-Air takes on those conversations — about what it means to be Black and how that intersects with having or not having money — with a different flavor. How do you think your show tackles it differently than the original?
That is something that the writers and showrunners T.J. [Brady] and Rasheed [Newson], and Morgan [Cooper], have been having a lot of different conversations about. It’s about perspective. We see that play out in the first episode with the N-word conversation and the different perspectives. I think a lot of Black folk think like Will, but there are a whole group of Black people in this world who see that issue from Carlton’s perspective. To open up and start having those conversations is the most important part for me. And I think, you know, Twitter is definitely going to be on that. (Laughs.) But that’s just something that our show does. It sparks conversation, and I think that’s something that we need as a community. That’s how we grow as a community. That’s how we grow as a human race. As a cast, we’re so close, and we talk about these things. It’s important to us and the showrunners.
A version of this story first appeared in the Feb. 11 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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