Will Smith Still Has Hope for Humanity: 'This Is the Purge, Right?'

The Smiths are the most quotable family on the planet.

December 14, 2017

Will Smith attends the Closing Ceremony during the 70th annual Cannes Film Festival — Image via Getty/Tristan Fewings

Jaden Smith and Willow Smith have been leading the way with Smith wisdom in 2017, so it's only fair we close out the year with a new selection of Will Smith quotables.

Smith, whose new Netflix movie Bright drops later this month, predicted the "next age of humanity" is imminent while speaking with reporters at a Beverly Hills press conference Wednesday. According to Smith, what we're living through now is the "messy" purge preceding a great leap forward for humankind.

"This is the purge, right?" Smith said, according toIndieWire. "This is the cleanse. This is what happens. This is the natural reaction to the amount of light that came into the world when Barack Obama was the president."

Smith said we should have expected the pendulum to temporarily "go the other way" as part of that reaction. "I feel very, very strongly that we are shifting into what the next age of humanity is going to be right now," he said. "It's just the shit has to get stirred up, in a way. We're seeing it all."

What we do as a people following this sea change, Smith added, is crucial. "It's going to be really interesting to see how humanity reacts to it, and it's going to be a fucking mess," he said. "It's going to be a mess, but it's the mess in the cleanup. It's the mess and the purge before that new, real light shows up."

Bright, the film Smith was promoting at Wednesday's event, reunites him with Suicide Squad director David Ayer. Ahead of the film's Dec. 22 release, Netflix has launched the nostalgia-heavy 1-844-SEE-BRIGHT hotline. Give it a ring.