Bel-Air Repeats Will Smith’s Improvised Fresh Prince Pilot Talent

WARNING: Spoilers ahead for Bel-Air episode 4!

Peacock’s Bel-Air is bringing back plenty of storylines from Fresh Prince’s original series, including a repeat of Will Smith’s improvised talent from the 1990 pilot. Bel-Air’s dramatized reimagining of Fresh Prince has featured several changes to the character of young Will Smith, while still maintaining his internal struggles as a fish out of water in the mansions of Bel-Air. In the original series, Will Smith brought much more than just his name to the character, and Bel-Air has made it a point to pay tribute to the actor’s impact on the story.

While the characters may share differences in emotional complexities, Bel-Air season 1 has given Will Smith a very similar experience to the beginning of Fresh Prince. While Fresh Prince‘s theme song is no longer used in Bel-Air, the reimagining played out the narrative from the song throughout the first episode—complete with Will drinking orange juice out of a champagne glass on his first-class flight. While it’s unclear if Bel-Air’s Will Smith, played by Jabari Banks, can rap as well as the original figure, the new Will is repeating the Fresh Prince character’s hidden musical talents.

In Bel-Air episode 4, Will is seen sitting down at the Banks’ grand piano, where he begins flawlessly playing a piece of music. Hilary Banks walks in and is happily surprised, not expecting a kid of Will’s disposition to be trained with classical music. This scene directly repeats the final moment in Fresh Prince’s original pilot, which saw Will Smith sitting down at the grand piano to play Beethoven’s “Für Elise” after acting immaturely at Uncle Phil’s dinner party. Thinking he’s alone, Fresh Prince reveals that James Avery’s Uncle Phil caught him playing the song, which puts a smile on his face from such a sweet surprise; though this is flipped with Hilary hearing his talent in Bel-Air. While this Fresh Prince moment was extremely important in exposing the biases and expectations of the Banks family and Will, the piano playing was completely improved by Will Smith.

Fresh Prince’s pilot scene was supposed to see Will sit down at the piano and simply reflect on his actions to Uncle Phil, but the real Will Smith decided to play one of Beethoven’s greatest classical pieces. Smith’s improvisation made the scene much more powerful, especially since it was Uncle Phil walking in on him after the two spent the episode at odds with one another. In both Bel-Air and Fresh Prince, Will’s “refined” talent is a way to expose the prejudices that the Banks family may have over a kid like Will by not expecting him to have the discipline to spend years of practice learning classical piano. Even Hilary admits that she spent years in lessons and it never stuck, while Bel-Air’s Will mentions that he never had formal lessons and had to learn on a cardboard box that mimed the placement of piano keys.

It’s clear that the piano scene from Fresh Prince had a profound impact on the series’ progression, as this is one of the only scenes that Bel-Air has directly taken from the original show. Fresh Prince’s Will Smith recalled that the entire cast went silent after he improvised playing his grandmother’s favorite classical piano piece, as he was originally instructed to face away from the piano to ponder Phil’s closing words (via Classic FM). The line said by Uncle Phil in Fresh Prince’s pilot was “before you criticize somebody, find out what he’s all about,” so Will’s piano playing would show Phil his own hypocrisy. Smith recalled that the scene was about not judging a book by its cover, and exposing his own classical piano talent would support such a theme not only within the series, but also on set. This scene was foundational for the rest of Fresh Prince’s story, so it makes sense why Will Smith, as an executive producer, chose to bring it back for Bel-Air’s Will character.

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Jordan Williams
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Jordan Williams is a Movie/TV Feature Senior Staff Writer for Screen Rant. She graduated from the University of Oregon in 2020 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Media Studies.

Jordan is based in Seattle, Washington and enjoys exploring the natural beauty the PNW has to offer. She runs on coffee and classic movies, taking pride in having watched every film on AFI’s 100 Greatest Films list and every Best Picture Oscar winner.

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