Will Smith

Will Smith: Thank the gods of show by Jerry Seinfeld. In the midst of "Super Size This" atmosphere "Oprah Pop Spectacular", his homage to comic Winfrey explained why his interaction with artists often rubbed me the wrong way.During a hilarious riff on her daily shows as training sessions for husbands like me, who can always use more training, he said that male guests on 'Oprah' actually learned to answer questions and listen. For deadly Oprahfied sincerity, no one can top Tom Hanks. In the pre-Oprah Eighties he burst on the scene as a frolicking comic in TV's "Bosom Buddies" and a feather-light romantic lead in "Splash." In the post-Oprah Nineties and 00s he became increasingly earnest and often dull on-screen, and increasingly sappy off-screen. As one of Oprah's farewell hosts, you could believe in his pride and happiness and sadness and still regret that he wore his heart on his sleeve, his cuff, and his collar. His real emoting looked like mugging. Seinfeld made a brilliant joke out of Oprah's insistent kind of sincerity her view that her sofa was a hot seat for "the truth." Her demand for tell-all honesty made a lot of actors lose their playfulness and wit and edge or just go overboard. Is it any wonder that Tom Cruise jumped the couch on "Oprah?" These days it's a relief to see him revert to being a toothy variation on an old-time action hero. Not everyone succumbed to Oprah-itis during her final shows. Like Seinfeld, Will Smith didn't forget that show-biz artists express their authenticity through entertainment. Smith showed you could be full of heart without losing style and panache. Jamie Foxx dazzled the audience with his electrifying performance of "Isn't She Lovely?" The yearning faces and outstretched arms of the females in the audience proved that he convinced each woman in the gigantic stadium (and probably at home, too) that he was singing just to her. It's got to think, when oh when has Foxx never get another role equal to his Oscar-winning Ray Charles "Ray" (2004) Kristin Chenoweth displayed extraordinary power and control when he sang the "good", while hundreds of scholarships Morehouse College for students from Oprah, the procession moved touching and inspiring for the stage. Our culture post-Oprah, we put the accent too great interpreters of the 'real'. Chenoweth, like Seinfeld, Smith and Foxx has proven to be what really makes them real is their art.