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How Jaden Smith Chooses a Role
SKETCH-O-VISION
A VERY GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME.
The setup
Watch on YouTube
Watch onYouTube
The premise
Here’s the bit.
Lounging in his all-white mansion, Jaden Smith takes a call from his agent Clyde, who paces beside a hotel pool. Jaden wants his next project to prove he is an ordinary, grounded kid, so Clyde pitches Streetball, a drama about Tony, a boy from the hood who lives in a house with his mom. Jaden stops him at every turn, and Clyde has to translate each everyday idea into terms his client knows: a house becomes a tiny mansion, a supermarket a mansion full of food that anyone can visit, and a job a film shoot that never ends and that nobody will see, which Jaden decides makes Tony's mother a maid. Basketball played outside rather than on a plane or in a limo baffles him, and when Clyde explains that Tony must choose between two things he wants, Jaden dismisses the whole premise as science fiction. Clyde agrees to pass, and a sneeze earns him a blessing that nods to Jaden's famous father.
The funny people
Meet the cast. 2
Say it with us
Highly quotable.
Working is kind of like acting on a set every day in a film that no one's ever gonna see, and it lasts for the rest of your life.
Oh, like a maid!
Behind the scenes
The people who made it.
Peter Atencio
Director
Script
Automatically generated script; wording may contain errors. Speaker labels are inferred.
- 00:04
Jaden Smith
Call my agent.
- 00:09
Clyde
Jaden Pickett Smith, my man.
- 00:11
Jaden Smith
What up, Clyde? Hey, look, man, I'm gonna be real with you, OK? This Alien Boy script, I'm not feeling it. I mean, it's hard being Will Smith's son. I just want to make sure my next project reflects that I'm a down-to-earth, normal kid. Am I making any sense?
- 00:27
Clyde
Yeah, yeah, I'm reading you loud and clear. I've got a script right here, very real, called Streetball.
- 00:32
Jaden Smith
Talk to me.
- 00:33
Clyde
OK, so you play Tony. He's a kid from the streets, lives in the hood in a house with his mom.
- 00:37
Jaden Smith
Stop. House?
- 00:41
Clyde
Oh, it's like a tiny mansion.
- 00:43
Jaden Smith
Got it. Go on.
- 00:45
Clyde
So his mom and he, they live in this house, and she works at a supermarket.
- 00:48
Jaden Smith
Stop.
- 00:49
Clyde
Oh, a supermarket's like a mansion, but it's full of food, and anyone can go there.
- 00:54
Jaden Smith
So like where the butlers go?
- 00:56
Clyde
Yeah, basically. So he, uh.
- 00:58
Jaden Smith
And wait, you said his mom was doing something at the supermarket?
- 01:03
Clyde
Working.
- 01:04
Jaden Smith
So?
- 01:05
Clyde
Well, working is kind of like acting on a set every day in a film that no one's ever going to see, and it lasts for the rest of your life.
- 01:12
Jaden Smith
Oh, like a maid.
- 01:13
Clyde
Yeah, yeah, she's like the maid of the supermarket.
- 01:15
Jaden Smith
Awesome, continue.
- 01:17
Clyde
So anyway, Tony doesn't make the basketball team, right? So he decides to start playing pickup games of streetball outside.
- 01:23
Jaden Smith
So he plays basketball on his plane?
- 01:27
Clyde
No, on the ground.
- 01:28
Jaden Smith
In his limo?
- 01:30
Clyde
No, outside is that stuff that goes by when you're inside the limo.
- 01:34
Jaden Smith
Oh, snap, he plays basketball outside the limo door?
- 01:38
Clyde
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So then he gets really good at basketball. And then, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, fast forward, at the heart of the story, Tony has to choose between his mom.
- 01:47
Jaden Smith
Choose.
- 01:49
Clyde
Yeah, choose is when you have to make a decision between two things you want, but you can have only one.
- 01:56
Jaden Smith
But there's two.
- 01:59
Clyde
Yeah, but I mean, he can't have both.
- 02:03
Jaden Smith
What I say about science fiction, Clyde, it's a no.
- 02:06
Jaden Smith
No.
- 02:07
Clyde
OK, we'll pass.
- 02:10
Clyde
Ah!
- 02:11
Jaden Smith
Dad bless you.
- 02:12
Clyde
Thanks.
The rabbit hole continues
One more couldn’t hurt.
More from Key & Peele.
