'Incensed' Will Smith Weighs Political Career

Will Smith has hinted that he might enter politics, saying he is so angry at the state of the country he cannot sleep.

The Men In Black star, who has already reinvented himself once as a rapper turned actor, said he might be needed in public service.

Promoting his latest movie Concussion, the 47-year-old told the Hollywood Reporter's Awards Chatter podcast: "I'm working really hard and my storytelling is elevating, my ability to be eloquent with my body and with my voice and to deliver ideas as an actor is elevating.

"And, you know, as I look at the political landscape, I think that there might be a future out there for me. They might need me out there."

He continued: "This is the first year that I've been incensed to a level that I can't sleep, you know?

"So I'm feeling that at some point, in the near future, I will have to lend my voice to the conversation in a somewhat different way."

Smith - who with his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, hosted a fundraiser for President Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign - said he didn't want to rest on his laurels.

"If I see a mountain, I have to climb it," he said. "I'm not a camper. I don't like hanging in one place too long.

"So I think, at this point, I'm elevating my ability to be useful in the world.

"I think that that's what my grandmother always hoped, that I would make myself useful to people in this lifetime."

Amid an ongoing public debate over race, Smith said African Americans have done comparatively well in the US.

"America's the only place on earth that I could exist," he said.

"No other country on earth produces Will Smiths, you know?"

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air added: "If you look back historically, of how black people have had it on the planet, America is elevating quite well, based on the history of our people."