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Tuesday, 10 July 2012 |
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His birth name is Willard Christopher Smith, Jr., but everyone knows him as Will Smith. As a rapper, actor and movie producer, he is one of the best known and admired names in the entertainment industry. In 2007, Newsweek magazine called him the most powerful actor in Hollywood. Will Smith was born in 1968 as the second of four children, and grew up in middle class surroundings in West Philadelphia. One his teacher's gave him the nickname 'Prince' because of the way he could charm his way out of trouble. He started rapping when he was twelve. His first love was music, which he pursued with great passion before becoming an actor. He has so far won three Grammys, two American Music Awards, and numerous MTV movie and music awards. He has two sons and is married to actress Jada Pinkett. President Barack Obama has said that if a film were to ever be made about his own life, he would have Smith play his part, because "he has the ears." Today's Wiz Quiz brings you a few questions based on the wide and varied career of versatile artist Will Smith. 1. In 1988, Will Smith was the first rapper to get a Grammy Award for best rap performance shared with (disc jokey) DJ Jazzy Jeff. What was the song that won him the Grammy? 2. Will Smith's acting break came in a television sitcom comedy that aired on United States (US) network television from 1990 to1996, where he played the role of a street-smart teenager from West Philadelphia who is sent to move in with his aunt and uncle in their wealthy mansion in Los Angeles, where his lifestyle often clashes with that of his relatives. The series ran for 148 episodes in six seasons. What was its name, where the theme song was also written and performed by Smith? 3. In 2002, Will Smith was nominated for Best Actor Oscar for playing the role of an athlete. The movie was directed by Michael Mann. The movie also featured the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Even though it did not do well at the box office, Will Smith's superb portrayal of this athlete's rise to the heavyweight championship garnered praise from both critics and movie-goers. What was the movie?
4. In the late 1990s, Will Smith was approached to play the lead in what turned out to be highly successful movie franchise by the Wachowski Brothers. But he turned it down in order to star in Wild Wild West. Smith later admitted that, he was "not mature enough as an actor" at the time and that, if he had taken up the role, he "would have messed it up" What was this movie series? 5. Will Smith and his second son Jaden starred together in this movie based on the real life of a man's rags-to-riches story in 2006. It was called Pursuit of Happyness and was directed by Gabriele Muccino, who was handpicked by Will Smith himself after seeing the director's previous work. Will Smith was nominated for his second best actor Oscar in 2007 for portraying which real life character of an African American who started with nothing and became a successful entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist? 6. When adjusted to inflation, Will Smith's movies over the years have grossed over 6.3 billion US Dollars worldwide. He also has 13 movies which grossed over 100 million US Dollars in US alone. Only Tom Cruise (with 16 movies) and Tom Hanks (with 17) have appeared in more movies that grossed over 100 million Dollars in the US. What is the highest grossing film of Will Smith's career so far, as at mid 2012?
8. Will Smith has increasingly starred in science fiction thrillers. In the 2004 movie i, Robot, he played Detective Del Spooner. In another post-apocalyptic science fiction thriller made in 2007, Smith plays virologist Robert Neville who is immune to a man-made virus originally created to cure cancer but then ran amok. He works to create a remedy while defending against humans mutated by the run-away virus. What was this movie, whose story takes place in September 2012 -- when Smith's character is the last healthy person left on Earth? 9. According to International Rugby Board figures, quoted by the New York Times in April 2012, there are more than 103,000 rugby players in Sri Lanka, making it the second largest rugby-playing nation in Asia, behind which Asian country? 10. Which famous astrophysicist once remarked, "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible!" 11. A Lankan Trotskyist leader and criminal lawyer, he was a founder of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, the first Marxist party in Sri Lanka, established in 1935. He gained his PhD from the University of London for his thesis titled Ceylon Under the British Occupation (1795-1833). He was a Member of Parliament for Wellawatte-Mt Lavinia (1947-52) and for Agalawatte (1964-77). In 1970 he became the Minister of Plantation Industries and Constitutional Affairs in the cabinet of Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, and was the principal architect of Sri Lanka's first Republican Constitution of 1972. Who was he?
13. As at early July 2012, it was still uncertain whether Saudi Arabia will allow women to represent their country at the London Olympics starting on July 27, 2012. Women have had a long and successful struggle to compete in the Olympics. In the early years of the modern Olympics, women were not well represented - there was not a single woman athlete at the first modern games in 1896. The founder of modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, felt that their inclusion would be "impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and incorrect." Women participated for the first time at the 1900 Paris Games with the inclusion of which two women's events? 14. Women competed in Olympic swimming events for the first time at the Stockholm Games in 1912, but none of them were from America, which at that time did not allow its female athletes to compete in events without long skirts! The first women's swimming gold medal was in the 100m freestyle event, and it was won by an Australian who at the time was the world's greatest female swimmer. Who was she? 15. Which well known French author and novelist said: "There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come"? Last week’s answers1. In Culmore, Northern Ireland |
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7. In 2004, Will Smith provided voice talent for Shark Tale is a
computer-animated comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation. In the
story, he plays the voice of a young fish named Oscar who falsely claims
to have killed the son of a shark mob boss to win favour with the
gangster's enemies and advance his own community standing. The film drew
inspiration from Jaws, but was considered to be a direct parody of a
1972 live action movie, one of the best known about gangster life. What
was that movie? 
12. The US space agency NASA recently 'retired' its space shuttle
fleet. The flying shuttle had nothing to do with either flying or space.
It was an early and key development in the industry of weaving
(clothes). It allowed a single weaver to weave much wider fabrics, and
it could be mechanized, allowing for automatic machine looms. Name the
Englishman who patented the flying shuttle in 1733? 
