Will Smith walks red carpet in London for premiere of ‘Seven Pounds’

London, Jan 15: Hollywood giant Will Smith and director Gabriele Muccino were both in London for the gala premiere of `Seven Pounds.`Smith, despite being the only star of the movie to attend the premiere, still managed to pull a healthy crowd of screaming fans who had gathered to see their hero.

There was no avoiding the giant `Will Smith` sign erected behind fans, and even the star himself was pretty impressed by it. "I think the most challenging part was getting my name up there, like that, that big, that was really, really challenging, but it looks like they worked it out," Will said. In `Seven Pounds` Smith plays Tim Thomas, a gifted engineer who accidentally kills seven people in a car crash, including his own wife. Through guilt, Tim sets out to redeem himself by finding seven individuals to help in order to make up for the lives he destroyed. He then plans to kill himself once he has helped them, to atone for his sins. Tim set`s about stealing his brother ID, who works for the IRS, to obtain information about people to help. Posing as his brother Ben, he then sets out on an emotional journey to find his chosen seven. Among those he meets are Ezra Turner (Woody Harrelson) and Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson), the latter of which he falls in love with. `Seven Pounds` provokes questions about life, regret, friendship, love, redemption and even death. It`s also a film which took Smith to some unfamiliar dark places. "It was such a strange place for me, you know, to play a character who had given up. It`s so not my spirit, it`s so not my energy. He experienced a trauma and just gave up on life, so to play that character that`s constantly in that down space was difficult for me in the sense that, I don`t know how to turn it on and off. So once I`m in that dark space it was three months of film making in that space. It was tough for the family," said Smith. Director Gabriele Muccino, who directed Smith in the acclaimed 2006 The Pursuit of Happyness,` described Will as `intriguing to work with.` "It`s really, really challenging and intriguing to work with him. He`s really ambitious and he wants to be always better and in the mean time he`s really humble and easy to direct and to put together our strength it`s a magic combination, because we`re really challenging each other and there`s a kind of bravery in what we like to do, that we share. That`s a very unique thing." `Seven Pounds` opens in the UK on 16 Jan 2009. Bureau Report