Will Smith shares a room with an ant, once ate a creature’s heart and talked to its mother in the first teaser trailer for an upcoming show featuring some of the most dangerous and unusual creatures on earth
Will Smith is back and he’s trying his hand at reality TV. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air actor and rap artist is a cast member of Yellowstone, a new wildlife series that finds him sharing a room with a giant ant that likes to shoot lasers at him and eating the hearts of living creatures – in front of a camera.
Smith plays the role of narrator for the show, which will air on National Geographic beginning in June, but in addition to his narrator duties he will participate in more dangerous stunts, as the show’s tagline explains: “We call him the coolest dude alive. No one sees it coming.”
According to National Geographic, Smith “helps guide viewers into the most intriguing and dangerous corners of the park, as the crew introduces the world’s most adventurous adventurers, thrilling new animals and breathtaking wild moments – not all of which we’ll see on television”.
In the first teaser trailer, set to the sound of the intro to Fresh Prince, Smith is sat with a young ant that will stop at nothing to get a taste of its host. He looks into the camera, whispers in his typical tone and raises a finger: “Hey, you know you love me.”
It’s not clear whether the ant is able to see his voice.
Will Smith tries his hand at reality TV with National Geographic’s Yellowstone. Photograph: Bob D’Amico/National Geographic
Smith has not shied away from dangerous stunts since appearing in the third instalment of Independence Day: Resurgence, playing an extraterrestrial craft jamming with the Earth’s “deep skies”. In the same film, he visited his old high school and had a breakdown. “Yup, I get it,” he told an aspiring hip-hop artist, making his first choice for a “new” single his song Let Me Roll. “I’m not your dad.” He promptly performed it on stage.
Smith also has a hip-hop twist to his acting career: he voices a father in animated series Zootopia, for example, and he teams up with Jaden Smith to compete against each other as rappers in the Apple music Beats 1 show The Ocho.
Smith has made no secret of his fascination with animals over the years. In 2015, he ended a Hooters performance by performing a healing ritual with a live blue snake. Smith even told Vanity Fair about a rare experience he had with a golden lion tamarin, a primate that is considered one of the most beautiful species on Earth. “It got a little uncomfortable,” he recalled. “So I got out and put a pair of socks on and pretended to be a little grandmother. It was a little scarier, that monkey.”