Will Smith Gets a Street Named in the Philadelphia Neighborhood Where He Was Born and Raised

Will Smith holds up a street sign during a ceremony to name a street after him in West Philadelphia on Wednesday, March 26, 2025. (The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
Will Smith holds up a street sign during a ceremony to name a street after him in West Philadelphia on Wednesday, March 26, 2025. (The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
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Will Smith Gets a Street Named in the Philadelphia Neighborhood Where He Was Born and Raised

Will Smith holds up a street sign during a ceremony to name a street after him in West Philadelphia on Wednesday, March 26, 2025. (The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
Will Smith holds up a street sign during a ceremony to name a street after him in West Philadelphia on Wednesday, March 26, 2025. (The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)

In West Philadelphia where he was born and raised, now there’s a street called Will Smith Way.

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker and city leaders honored the Oscar and Grammy winner on Wednesday, renaming a street next to Smith's old high school.

"Philly, I love you. I am yours. You are mine," Smith said at a ceremony along a section of 59th Street that now bears his name.

He reminisced about learning the values of hard work and education from his mother and father before hitting it big as an actor and rapper.

"Nobody gets an easy ride," he said. "That was one of the things these streets of Philadelphia taught me: that there's nothing wrong with a hard day's work."

Among those who came out to see him was a former teacher who was the first to call him "Prince Charming" — a nickname he changed up a bit for the 1990s TV show "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," in which Smith played a teenager from Philadelphia who goes to live with relatives in Los Angeles.

"The name `The Fresh Prince' was coined in that building," Smith said, pointing back at Overbrook High School. "I added the ‘fresh’ because it was hip-hop slang."

Smith will release his fifth studio album "Based on a True Story" on Friday. It’s his first music project in two decades since "Lost and Found."

He won Grammys for "Summertime,Men In Black,Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It" and "Parents Just Don’t Understand." He's also starred in the movies "Bad Boys,Men in Black" and "King Richard."



Richard Linklater’s Ode to the French New Wave Enchants Cannes

(L-R) Aubry Dullin, director Richard Linklater, Zoey Deutch and Guillaume Marbeck attend the photocall for "Nouvelle Vague (New Wave)" during the 78th annual Cannes Film Festival, in Cannes, France, 18 May 2025. (EPA)
(L-R) Aubry Dullin, director Richard Linklater, Zoey Deutch and Guillaume Marbeck attend the photocall for "Nouvelle Vague (New Wave)" during the 78th annual Cannes Film Festival, in Cannes, France, 18 May 2025. (EPA)
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Richard Linklater’s Ode to the French New Wave Enchants Cannes

(L-R) Aubry Dullin, director Richard Linklater, Zoey Deutch and Guillaume Marbeck attend the photocall for "Nouvelle Vague (New Wave)" during the 78th annual Cannes Film Festival, in Cannes, France, 18 May 2025. (EPA)
(L-R) Aubry Dullin, director Richard Linklater, Zoey Deutch and Guillaume Marbeck attend the photocall for "Nouvelle Vague (New Wave)" during the 78th annual Cannes Film Festival, in Cannes, France, 18 May 2025. (EPA)

When Richard Linklater first started thinking about making a film about the French New Wave, he figured he'd show it all everywhere except one place.

"I thought: They'll hate that an American director did this," Linklater said Sunday. "We’ll show this film all over the world, but never in France."

But Linklater nevertheless unveiled "Nouvelle Vague" on Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival, bringing film about the making of Jean-Luc Godard's "Breathless" to the very heart of the French film industry. It was, Linklater granted, an audacious thing to do.

And "Nouvelle Vague" went down as one of the biggest successes of the festival. At a Cannes that's been largely characterized by darker, more portentous dramas, "Nouvelle Vague" was cheered as an enchanting ode to moviemaking.

"Nouvelle Vague" is an uncanny kind of recreation. In black-and-white and in the style of the French New Wave, it chronicles the making of one of the most celebrated French films of all time. With sunglasses that never come off his face, Guillaume Marbeck plays 29-year-old Godard as he's making his first feature, trying to launch himself as a film director and upend filmmaking convention.

Linklater's movie, which is for sale at Cannes and competing for the Palme d'Or, is in French. It not only goes day-by-day through the making of "Breathless," it endeavors to capture the entire movement of one of the most fabled eras of moviemaking. Truffaut, Varda, Chabrol, Melville, Rohmer, Rossellini and Rivette are just some of the famous filmmakers who drift in and out of the movie.

Linklater told reporters Sunday that he wanted audiences to feel "like they were hanging out with Nouvelle Vague in 1959."

"It was an old idea of some colleagues of mine," said Linklater. "Thirteen years ago, we started talking about it. We're just cinephiles Austin, Texas, who love this era, and it's meant so much to me in my filmmaking. It represented freedom and the notion of the personal film. I've made a lot of films, and I've always felt if you do it long enough, maybe you should make one film about making films."

The stars of "Breathless" — Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg — are played by Aubry Dullin and Zoey Deutch, respectively, in "Nouvelle Vague." With precision, Linklater captures them making some of the most famous shots from "Breathless" with a visual style and camera movements typical of that time.

"We couldn’t work quite as fast. We had sound and things," said Linklater, chuckling. (Godard dubbed sound after shooting.)

"It was a crazy idea and I haven’t really ever seen a film exactly like this. I said: We’re making a film from 1959 but it’s not a Godard film," said Linklater. "You can’t imitate Godard. You fail. But we could imitate the style of the time."

In "Nouvelle Vague," Godard is surrounded by doubts — Seberg is notably unsure of the project — but he stubbornly sticks to his instance on spontaneity. There's no real script, some shooting days just last a few hours and lines are improvised on the spot. In one fittingly moment where Godard tells his actors just to quote Humphry Bogart movie lines, he explains: "Not plagiarism. Homage."

Linklater's own homage in "Nouvelle Vague" brought him back to his early days as a filmmaker. His first films — "Slacker,Dazed and Confused,Before Sunrise" — have much of the independent spirit of the New Wave, he said.

"Making this film all these later, I felt like I erased my own history," said Linklater. "I was going back to being in my late 20s making my first film. I told a friend last night: I felt like I was 28 years old making this film."