Will Smith is willing to laugh at the now-viral meme of him looking just like Uncle Phil.
During a press conference at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday, July 20, a Huffington Post reporter mentioned the image —taken as a still from a video — in which Smith appears to be the spitting image of his late Fresh Prince of Bel-Air costar James Avery. “I don’t know if you saw, but a lot of fans isolated one moment where they said you reminded them of…” the reporter said as Smith, who was there to promote his film Bright, interjected to finish the sentence: “Uncle Phil!”
In the screen grab from a GoPro video taken during a March bungee-jumping excursion, Smith sports gray facial hair and a shaved head, as Avery did on the beloved sitcom.
Crazy how Will Smith looks exactly like the time he portrayed himself as Ashley’s dad. pic.twitter.com/lCLyh2O5bJ
— Jonathan Owa ??? (@DariusGA97) July 18, 2017
Smith, 48, was also able to laugh at images circulating online comparing the facial hair he sported in Bright to a fake mustache he wore on an episode of the ‘90s sitcom. “The mustache! I hated that mustache,” Smith said of his modern-day facial hair. “That was so bad.”
As previously reported, Avery passed away in December 2013. Years later, Smith posted a touching tribute and photo of Avery, Alfonso Ribeiro, Tatyana Ali and Karyn Parsons. “Some of my greatest lessons in Acting, Living and being a respectable human being came through James Avery,” he wrote on Facebook in September 2016. “Every young man needs an Uncle Phil.”
