Will Smith takes his powerhouse status to revitalize the bold presence of rum brand Dictador through their new ‘The Game Changer’ collection.
The Academy Award winner has spent four decades as a world-class entertainer first an emcee, then a buzzy television and film star before elevating his stardom as a businessman, producer and best-selling author. Smith raises the bar consistently, and in joining Dictador, he toasts a glass to success while looking towards connection to uplift the social climate. To keep it succinct: he wants the taste for craftsmanship and collaboration to be universal.
After showing interest in being an integral part of Dictador, Smith was pitched the idea of a legacy rum by Polish entrepreneur Mariusz Jawoszek, who’s CEO and owner of Dictador. “We see brand building in a different way. And I think this is the success of Dictador,” says Jawoszek. “Everything I am doing with my team is just to enhance and show how good [the drink is], because the essence is in the bottle. The rest is just the energy, the creation, the collectibility.”
The Game Changer, a Colombian rum enhanced under master blender Hernan Parra, with refined notes of caramel, dried citrus, honey and oak, has a smoothness that complements the collection’s bottles, graffiti-designed Kong sculptures crafted by French artist Richard Orlinski. Although an homage to five decades of Orlinski figurines, the bottles also nod to Smith’s beginnings on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, his acting debut which established him as a household name.
“In my generation, we grew up on Will's movies. He is an icon for my generation. He's an icon of film, an icon of music and art,” Jawoszek explains. “So, it would be, of course, difficult to imagine a better personality to collaborate with, to have in the company than Will Smith.”
“When people are looking forward right now, it doesn't feel as good as looking back,” adds Smith, the global artistic director of Dictador. “I feel like nostalgia is a really important part of this brand and honoring our past and our heritage while creating together [for] what the future of human interaction is going to be.”
Smith was shooting 2019 sci-fi action flick Gemini Man in Cartagena when he began drinking Dicatador like the locals, although he admittedly wasn’t a frequent rum drinker. But it was Jawoszek’s brand and vision that had Smith sold on bringing his forte to the company. “What got me about Mariusz is the absolute commitment to art,” Smith shares. “It is my belief and it is the devotion of my life that art will be a big part of bringing people together and elevating humanity through artistic exchange and interaction.”
“When I thought about the idea of a Polish businessman with a Colombian rum family with an African-American global creative director, It was exactly what I wanted to do with my life,” he continues. “Bringing people together globally in the spirit of artistic collaboration to be able to center meetings and events around global artistic collaboration, I was just on fire with that idea.”
Smith may not have been in a blockbuster this year, but make no mistake, the pop culture icon kept himself busy. He released Based on a True Story, his first album in twenty years, made a cameo in the final season of Bel-Air, and has the sequel to I Am Legend, co-starring Michael B. Jordan, on his radar, among several other acting projects. Before the release of his second travel show, Pole to Pole, the actor will be unwinding for the holidays, this time staying in Hollywood, a detour from his family’s yearly tradition.
“We've always gone to the snow. So, generally around July, we will figure out where the most snow in America is and we’ll point the family in that direction,” Smith says. “But my mother got sick probably about eight months ago and she moved to Los Angeles. We've never spent Christmas in L.A. She vowed to never move from Philly. And she came out here to visit and got sick and had to stay. She's fine now, but she realized she saw her grandkids every day. Seven of them live out here.”
The entertainer adds that his wife of nearly 30 years, actress and author Jada Pinkett Smith, is “real serious about Christmas,” which he highlights in his 2021 memoir, Will. “Christmas is really the nature of our family, [because] at any given time, everybody's in a different country somewhere around the world. So, Christmas is the one time that everybody has agreed that we're together for the ten days over Christmas into the new year. And that is mandatory family time,” Smith says.
Smith has also stepped up his holiday bartending game with his own signature cocktail, the ‘Big Willie,’ which mixes elderflower syrup, orange bitters, and the Game Changer for a distinctive that perfectly matches the entertainer’s dauntless personality. Smith’s character is engrained in the spirit of Dictador as he makes it his mission to illuminate the need for diverse collaboration.
“When you have different global voices at the table and if we can agree and disagree and create and celebrate that there's a higher outcome for all of us if everybody can get a voice in the creation. Building bridges between cultures is what I'm most excited about,” Smith says.
“I'm just wildly inspired,” he continues. “When I look at the world, there is like a whole lot going on that doesn't necessarily feel good. So I'm really inspired going into 2026 to just turn up the energy of fun and connection and collaboration and joy and art. I just feel like we all desperately need some light.”
With Dictador’s Game Changer, Smith and Jawoszek dedicate each pour to progress both for fellowship and the future of luxury spirits.