Everyone knows you rarely learn much by reading interviews with movie stars. It's a less commonplace experience, though, to feel yourself becoming actively less well-informed as you read, as if the celebrity's words were eliminating your brain-cells, one by one, like bubble-wrap being popped. Yet take a look, if you dare, at this Q&A, in the current edition of New York magazine, with Will Smith and his son Jaden, to promote their forthcoming film After Earth. It should definitely win some kind of award, though I'm not sure the relevant Pulitzer category has been created yet. 
 
 Smith senior is, of course, one half of the uber-powerful Hollywood couple who insist they're not Scientologists but who do give money to groups affiliated with Scientology and who did set up a private elementary school that deploys teaching methods formulated by L Ron Hubbard. Here, he claims not to be religious (though a few years ago he described himself as a Christian) and explains that, anyway, his real worldview is all about "patterns": 
 
 I'm a student of patterns. At heart, I'm a physicist. I look at everything in my life as trying to find the single equation, the theory of everything. 
 
 It's just a tiny bit unclear what Smith means by a "pattern": the two examples he endorses in the interview are a) that the sun rises every morning and b) that the Best Actor Oscar tends to be awarded to people portraying historical figures or characters with mental illness. One can also use patterns, Smith informs the interviewer, Claire Hoffman, to predict whether he will make another movie alongside his son: 
 
 
 
 If you were a student of the pattern, you'd have to say we were going to do another one. 
 
 
 
 Wait: "the pattern"? Is there one pattern, or are there many? I'm confused, but that's probably because mainstream media like New York magazine can't fully accommodate the profundity of Smith's thought: 
 
 You know, the forum of media that we're in can't really handle the complexity of things that we say all the time. 
 
 One feels inclined to cut Jaden Smith some slack, since he's only 14 and has been raised by Will Smith. But it ought to be noted that his contributions to the emerging Smith theory of everything are in many ways more mindwarping than his father's: 
 
 Jaden: I think that there is that special equation for everything, but I don't think our mathematics have evolved enough for us to even – I think there's, like, a whole new mathematics that we'd have to learn to get that equation. 
 
 Will: I agree with that. 
 
 Jaden: It's beyond mathematical. It's, like, multidimensional mathematical, if you can sort of understand what I'm saying. 
 
 
 
 I sort of can't, actually! But never mind. As Jaden – who has reportedly announced his desire to become an emancipated minor, free of parental control, when he turns 15 – explains about his mother, Jada Pinkett Smith: 
 
 If we're at a six, she's like at an eight and a half. 
 
 …whereas I'm probably more like a one or a two, so my confusion is understandable. (On what scale, you ask? We never learn.) 
 
 What to make of all this? It certainly demonstrates just how loopy your uncontrolled speculations can become when you're insulated, through fame and wealth, from people pointing out that they make no sense. Other than that, I'm fairly certain there are absolutely no conclusions to be drawn from it whatsoever. Sorry. Our mathematics just hasn't evolved sufficiently yet. 
 
 If you wonder where Smith is getting all this from, by the way, Jaden gives a hint at the end: 
 
 He's watching hours and hours of TED talks… 
 
 Ah, well, there you go. ||||| Will Smith came up with the story for M. Night Shyamalan’s postapocalyptic drama After Earth, which opens May 31, while watching his son Jaden, 14, film The Karate Kid in China. The premise: A father is a best-in-class soldier who crash-lands with his son on a hostile planet Earth a thousand years in the future. The father, wounded, must watch from the sidelines as the son navigates treacherous terrain and fights terrible creatures in order to escape. The parallels to their adventures in Hollywood, Will says, are obvious. 
 
 I’ve read that you believe life can be understood through patterns. 
 
 Will: I’m a student of patterns. At heart, I’m a physicist. I look at everything in my life as trying to find the single equation, the theory of everything. 
 
 Do you think there is a single theory to everything? 
 
 Jaden: There’s definitely a theory to everything. 
 
 Will: When you find things that are tried and true for millennia, you can bet that it’s going to happen tomorrow. 
 
 Jaden: The sun coming up? 
 
 Will: The sun coming up, but even a little more. Like for Best Actor Oscars. Almost 90 percent of the time, it’s mental illness and historical figures, right? So, you can be pretty certain of that if you want to win—as a man; it’s very different for women. The patterns are all over the place, but for whatever reason, it’s really difficult to find the patterns in Best Actress. 
 
 Do you see patterns too, Jaden? 
 
 Jaden: I think that there is that special equation for everything, but I don’t think our mathematics have evolved enough for us to even—I think there’s, like, a whole new mathematics that we’d have to learn to get that equation. 
 
 Will: I agree with that. 
 
 Jaden: It’s beyond mathematical. It’s, like, multidimensional mathematical, if you can sort of understand what I’m saying. 
 
 Are both of you religious? 
 
 Will: No, we are students of world religion. 
 
 Seems like everyone’s excited about the idea that you might be religious. 
 
 Will: We respect all [religions]. 
 
 Okay. Who would you say is the biggest star in your family? 
 
 Will and Jaden: [in unison] Willow! (Willow is Jaden’s 12-year-old sister.) 
 
 Jaden: She just knows who she is, so she just is. 
 
 Will: She has a magic power in the family. She absolutely demands the most attention, and there’s ­something really incendiary about a 12-year-old girl who says and does what she wants. 
 
 You and Jaden have acted in two movies together, including After Earth. Are you planning on a third? 
 
 Will: If you were a student of the pattern, you’d have to say we’re going to do another one. 
 
 Jaden: I definitely would do another one, absolutely. You know, how Johnny Depp and Tim Burton always do movies together, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio? We’ll have a relationship like that. 
 
 Do you think of that as a separate relationship from your father-son relationship? 
 
 Jaden: It’s kind of like father and son, except that we’re both going to work together. [Points to his dad.] Like you worked in your family business with your dad. I’m just working in my family business with my dad. Patterns, boom. 
 
 
 
 Jaden, how was working with your father this time around different from before? 
 
 Jaden: Well, with the first movie [Pursuit of Happyness], he was teaching me along the way. This is how the camera works. You do several takes. Like, literally everything you need to know about movies. And then, in Karate Kid, he was kind of holding my hand and watching me distill those rules. And then on After Earth, he was like, All right, you’re an actor, I’m an actor, let’s make a movie together. So it was like a collaboration, you know what I’m saying? 
 
 What is your dynamic when the whole family is on the set? 
 
 Jaden: Willow basically does her thing. [They both laugh.] Dad kind of just is there. He has to feel his own vibe. And my mom is probably like, “Uh-uh. Tell Jaden he needs to do this.” 
 
 Will: Yeah, Jada [Pinkett Smith] has really powerful insights and opinions about everything. 
 
 You guys aren’t that way? 
 
 Jaden: If we’re at a six, she’s like at an eight and a half. Like, when she comes on set and she sees something that’s not right, she says, “This needs to change, this needs to leave, this needs to happen.” 
 
 Will: Yeah, I probably had a couple of poor parenting moments on this movie. Do you know what a fer-de-lance is? 
 
 Jaden: It’s one of the most poisonous snakes in all of Costa Rica. 
 
 Will: There were a couple of days where there was a high concentration of snakes [on the set]. 
 
 Jaden: Fer-de-lances, not snakes! I was doing a scene, going through some tall grasses, and they said, “Hey, we caught some fer-de-lances around there, and there seems to be a lot more, and I think we should move the scene.” I was like, “How many fer-de-lances did you catch?” He’s like, “Eight.” 
 
 Will: I said, “Well, you got them all, so it’s fine. Let’s just shoot it.” Yeah, if Mommy was there, that wouldn’t have gone down. As an actor, I felt like it was an authentic experience of actually being in Costa Rica. I learned it in Ali, man, when you actually have to go to the place and you take the flight and you are actually in the authentic space, it adds to your performance. 
 
 Jaden, how does it feel to be famous? 
 
 Jaden: I think it’s fun, except when people make up stuff about you. Then it’s not so much fun. But besides that, I enjoy it. 
 
 It’s been reported that you might be dating Kylie Jenner. The Kardashians have treated their fame as the family business. Do you guys see yourselves as similar or different? [Will, laughing, holds up his hand for Jaden not to speak.] 
 
 Jaden: I’m trying to understand. 
 
 Will: Don’t. You know, he’s never had to, to deal with those kinds of questions. 
 
 Well, forget the Kardashians … maybe you could just … 
 
 Will: [Mimicking] “So how do you think your life is similar or un-similar to people’s names in Calabasas?” For our family, the entire structure of our life, our home, our business relationships—the entire purpose is for everyone to be able to create in a way that makes them happy. Fame is almost an inconsequential by-product of what we’re really trying to accomplish. We are trying to put great things into the world, we’re trying to have fun, and we’re trying to become the greatest versions of ourselves in the process of doing things we love. So the idea of fame or exploitation or orchestrating the media is sometimes even less than desirable for us. 
 
 Do you think Jaden could have been a dentist? 
 
 Will: It may seem like we have pushed our kids into the business, but that is absolutely insane. I would never, ever, push somebody to have their face on a poster that’s going be everywhere in the world. He is making a choice from the informed. It’s less scary to me than if he wanted to be a dentist in that I couldn’t help with what he’d chosen. I have relationships with some of the biggest filmmakers and actors and producers on Earth. So I can be a huge help. 
 
 Willow chose singing and then un-chose it. She said, “Daddy, I want to go to school with my friends during the week, and I want to hang out with them on the weekends.” At the peak of “Whip My Hair,” she’s like, “Daddy, I’m done.” I was like, “Wow, wow, wow. No, baby, I got Annie [the upcoming movie remake, co-produced by Jay-Z], you know. It’ll be New York, you’ll be with Beyoncé. You can bring your friends.” And she said, “Daddy, I got a better idea. How about I just be 12?” At the end of the day, it has to be their choice. 
 
 So maybe Jaden could have been a dentist, but he probably couldn’t sit in his room doing nothing all day. 
 
 Jaden: Probably not. 
 
 Will: I think it was in Edward ­Kennedy’s autobiography, he said that he hadn’t found his way in his life, and his father sat down with him and said, We are a family that are trying to have valuable lives. You are allowed to decide whether or not you want your life to be valuable to the world, and I respect that decision. I’m just not going to have a lot of time for you. Essentially that is my position with my children. You can choose anything that you want to do, anything you want to be, and you can decide you want to act crazy and run around. I respect your ability to choose a life for yourself that does not have value to the world. I respect that. I’m just not going have a lot of time for you. 
 
 In the past, Jada has described the family as transparent. Do you think that’s true? 
 
 Jaden: Definitely. 
 
 Will: Let me see. Are we transparent? 
 
 Jaden: You can argue that we’re extremely un-transparent. Everybody knows where we live, but nobody really knows what our house looks like. 
 
 Will: That’s true. 
 
 Jaden: We kind of live in a fortress. 
 
 Will: I think for the most part we are transparent in the sense that there’s very few big family secrets. I think that if Jaden or Trey [Will’s son from his first marriage] or Willow were to write a book ten years from now, it will be very similar to what people think. And, the things about our family that are mysteries or seem strange, when they’re explained, it’ll be obvious. You know, the forum of media that we’re in can’t really handle the complexity of things that we say all the time. 
 
 What would be an example? 
 
 Will: I did an interview where the only quote that everybody ran was “Will Smith doesn’t believe in punishment.” Well, that’s actually ridiculous. That’s not what I said, but the sound bite can’t actually hold the complexity of what I’m trying to say, you know. That there is a destructive aspect to corporal punishment that I don’t agree with. There are concepts and ideas about punishment that I think run counter to healthy growth and psychological stability in this world. But they just take one blurb. 
 
 Jaden: They’re always gonna do that. 
 
 Will: Yeah. What’s the blurb gonna be from this one? [Laughs] But for the most part I think we are very transparent, or maybe not transparent, but boring. 
 
 You think you’re boring? 
 
 Will: I think that if you were to come to the house, people would really be ­surprised at how simple and basic it is. Our whole dream for our home was for it to be an artist’s haven. So there are paint supplies; there’s a piano with a microphone and a recorder right there to capture things right in the second. There’s editing equipment. There are cameras. I think the only thing in our house that people would be surprised by is the efficiency. 
 
 Like staffing? 
 
 Will: No, just how serious we are about how the microphone at the piano has to be on and the recorder has to be ready to go for when somebody gets an idea. The paint supplies have got to be kept up—you know, you cannot go to paint something and a color’s empty. 
 
 Is it true that you alphabetized your laser discs? 
 
 Will: Yeah, I’m very, very serious about systems supporting creative inspiration. 
 
 In the movie, Jaden, your character calls his dad “Sir.” Is that the dynamic with you guys? 
 
 Jaden: In real life, no. It’s like how it is right now. 
 
 How is it right now? 
 
 Jaden: It’s hard for me to explain because it’s so normal to me. It’s like ­asking, “So, Jaden, how do you breathe?” He’s, like, really just cool. He lets us have our freedom as long as we can control our freedom. 
 
 In After Earth, the father is a general who is injured and has to watch his son fight for his life. Was this a metaphor for what it’s like sending your kid into Hollywood? 
 
 Will: Absolutely. That’s what I wanted the metaphor of this movie to be. A father having to watch as his son makes mistakes in the world, and in an extreme place of life or death. It is the excruciating parental pain of having to let your kids go, and you just have to hope that the lessons you’ve instilled will kick in at the right time. 
 
 Will, what kind of relationship did you have with your father? 
 
 Will: You know, I grew up where you got the hospital corners on the beds. I grew up with old-school rules where you speak when you’re spoken to. There were hugely powerful ideas about discipline and spirituality. 
 
 You were baptized. 
 
 Will: Baptized. Went to a Catholic school. Lived in a Jewish neighborhood. 
 
 My mother worked on the school board, so she was very serious about education, and my grandmother was in the church. So there was a huge amount of discipline, and I’m trying to maintain some of the old ideals, minus the ownership. We don’t own our children, you know. They own themselves. Not to go too far into that, talking about slavery concepts and how the black community is carrying those … 
 
 Jaden: If we started going down that road, Mommy would, like, burst into this room. 
 
 In terms of mistakes, Will, early on in your career you had a period of years where most of your wages were garnished for not paying taxes. Have you educated Jaden about all the money he’s making? 
 
 Will: Yeah, you know, we met with ­Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and we’re trying to design a ­curriculum for children to understand even the basic connection between a bank and capitalism. I mean, I’m very serious with my kids about them comprehending the intricacies of global finance. 
 
 Is it hard to educate your kids to be responsible about money when they grew up with wealth? 
 
 Will: It’s funny. Willow and Trey went in completely the opposite direction. Like, Willow only shops at Target. Jaden is really the only one of my kids that has a little bit of a taste for, uh … 
 
 Jaden: I like Cartier. 
 
 Will: That’s a little new. 
 
 Jaden: The Cartier is new, but before that it was Louis [Vuitton]. 
 
 Will: Yes, he has a little bit of a taste. But he connects his responsibility to working and creating to the fun that he enjoys with the finer things. 
 
 So, Jaden, you like spending the money you earn? 
 
 Jaden: Well, when you say it like that, not really. There was a time in my life when I’d go to Cartier, like, every weekend for like a month. But, now I’m … 
 
 What would you buy? 
 
 Jaden: I have four rings I’m not wearing today. I haven’t bought anything that expensive in a really long time. The only thing I buy is, like, food and skateboards. 
 
 Will: Once he started approving his own bank statements and credit cards and all, yeah, he changed. 
 
 I heard that you and Jada were going to write a book together? 
 
 Will: It feels like you can’t write books in progress. 
 
 Jaden: Give them ten years. They’ll drop a book every year. 
 
 You feel like they have a lot to say? 
 
 Jaden: Yes, like 900 pages, both of them, so it’ll be like two books a year. He drops his book, she drops her book. 
 
 Will: Our kids get an earful around the house just on every topic, every subject. 
 
 Jaden: If I’m with my friends, and they’ll be like, “Oh, hey, where’s your dad? Let’s go say hi.” And I’ll be like, “Oh, no. He’s watching hours and hours of TED Talks just … Dude, don’t go in there.” Last time I went in there, he said, “Jaden, so the art of telling stories is an art that you really have to learn. I want you to read Aesop’s Fables.” “Dad, I’ve read Aesop’s Fables three times.” “Honestly, you can’t read it enough.” But when you’re on your way to see a 9:15 movie and it’s nine o’clock, he’s like, “Wait, wait, Jaden, I need to tell you something about life, man.” 
 
 *This article originally appeared in the June 3, 2013 issue of New York Magazine. ||||| Shirley Bagwell, a longtime Tennessee teacher, warns that “to expect all students to master algebra will cause more students to drop out.” For those who stay in school, there are often “exit exams,” almost all of which contain an algebra component. In Oklahoma , 33 percent failed to pass last year, as did 35 percent in West Virginia . 
 
 Algebra is an onerous stumbling block for all kinds of students: disadvantaged and affluent, black and white. In New Mexico , 43 percent of white students fell below “proficient,” along with 39 percent in Tennessee. Even well-endowed schools have otherwise talented students who are impeded by algebra, to say nothing of calculus and trigonometry. 
 
 California ’s two university systems, for instance, consider applications only from students who have taken three years of mathematics and in that way exclude many applicants who might excel in fields like art or history. Community college students face an equally prohibitive mathematics wall. A study of two-year schools found that fewer than a quarter of their entrants passed the algebra classes they were required to take. 
 
 “There are students taking these courses three, four, five times,” says Barbara Bonham of Appalachian State University. While some ultimately pass, she adds, “many drop out.” 
 
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 Another dropout statistic should cause equal chagrin. Of all who embark on higher education, only 58 percent end up with bachelor’s degrees. The main impediment to graduation: freshman math. The City University of New York , where I have taught since 1971, found that 57 percent of its students didn’t pass its mandated algebra course. The depressing conclusion of a faculty report: “failing math at all levels affects retention more than any other academic factor.” A national sample of transcripts found mathematics had twice as many F’s and D’s compared as other subjects. 
 
 Nor will just passing grades suffice. Many colleges seek to raise their status by setting a high mathematics bar. Hence, they look for 700 on the math section of the SAT, a height attained in 2009 by only 9 percent of men and 4 percent of women. And it’s not just Ivy League colleges that do this: at schools like Vanderbilt, Rice and Washington University in St. Louis , applicants had best be legacies or athletes if they have scored less than 700 on their math SATs. 
 
 It’s true that students in Finland , South Korea and Canada score better on mathematics tests. But it’s their perseverance, not their classroom algebra, that fits them for demanding jobs. 
 
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 Nor is it clear that the math we learn in the classroom has any relation to the quantitative reasoning we need on the job. John P. Smith III, an educational psychologist at Michigan State University who has studied math education, has found that “mathematical reasoning in workplaces differs markedly from the algorithms taught in school.” Even in jobs that rely on so-called STEM credentials — science, technology, engineering, math — considerable training occurs after hiring, including the kinds of computations that will be required. Toyota , for example, recently chose to locate a plant in a remote Mississippi county, even though its schools are far from stellar. It works with a nearby community college , which has tailored classes in “machine tool mathematics.” 
 
 That sort of collaboration has long undergirded German apprenticeship programs. I fully concur that high-tech knowledge is needed to sustain an advanced industrial economy. But we’re deluding ourselves if we believe the solution is largely academic. 
 
 A skeptic might argue that, even if our current mathematics education discourages large numbers of students, math itself isn’t to blame. Isn’t this discipline a critical part of education, providing quantitative tools and honing conceptual abilities that are indispensable — especially in our high tech age? In fact, we hear it argued that we have a shortage of graduates with STEM credentials. 
 
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 Of course, people should learn basic numerical skills: decimals, ratios and estimating, sharpened by a good grounding in arithmetic. But a definitive analysis by the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce forecasts that in the decade ahead a mere 5 percent of entry-level workers will need to be proficient in algebra or above. And if there is a shortage of STEM graduates, an equally crucial issue is how many available positions there are for men and women with these skills. A January 2012 analysis from the Georgetown center found 7.5 percent unemployment for engineering graduates and 8.2 percent among computer scientists. 
 
 Peter Braunfeld of the University of Illinois tells his students, “Our civilization would collapse without mathematics.” He’s absolutely right. 
 
 Algebraic algorithms underpin animated movies, investment strategies and airline ticket prices. And we need people to understand how those things work and to advance our frontiers. 
 
 Quantitative literacy clearly is useful in weighing all manner of public policies, from the Affordable Care Act, to the costs and benefits of environmental regulation, to the impact of climate change . Being able to detect and identify ideology at work behind the numbers is of obvious use. Ours is fast becoming a statistical age, which raises the bar for informed citizenship. What is needed is not textbook formulas but greater understanding of where various numbers come from, and what they actually convey. 
 
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 What of the claim that mathematics sharpens our minds and makes us more intellectually adept as individuals and a citizen body? It’s true that mathematics requires mental exertion. But there’s no evidence that being able to prove (x² + y²)² = (x² - y²)² + (2xy)² leads to more credible political opinions or social analysis. 
 
 Many of those who struggled through a traditional math regimen feel that doing so annealed their character. This may or may not speak to the fact that institutions and occupations often install prerequisites just to look rigorous — hardly a rational justification for maintaining so many mathematics mandates. Certification programs for veterinary technicians require algebra, although none of the graduates I’ve met have ever used it in diagnosing or treating their patients. Medical schools like Harvard and Johns Hopkins demand calculus of all their applicants, even if it doesn’t figure in the clinical curriculum, let alone in subsequent practice. Mathematics is used as a hoop, a badge, a totem to impress outsiders and elevate a profession’s status. 
 
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 It’s not hard to understand why Caltech and M.I.T. want everyone to be proficient in mathematics. But it’s not easy to see why potential poets and philosophers face a lofty mathematics bar. Demanding algebra across the board actually skews a student body, not necessarily for the better. 
 
 I WANT to end on a positive note. Mathematics, both pure and applied, is integral to our civilization, whether the realm is aesthetic or electronic. But for most adults, it is more feared or revered than understood. It’s clear that requiring algebra for everyone has not increased our appreciation of a calling someone once called “the poetry of the universe.” (How many college graduates remember what Fermat’s dilemma was all about?) 
 
 Instead of investing so much of our academic energy in a subject that blocks further attainment for much of our population, I propose that we start thinking about alternatives. Thus mathematics teachers at every level could create exciting courses in what I call “citizen statistics.” This would not be a backdoor version of algebra, as in the Advanced Placement syllabus. Nor would it focus on equations used by scholars when they write for one another. Instead, it would familiarize students with the kinds of numbers that describe and delineate our personal and public lives. 
 
 It could, for example, teach students how the Consumer Price Index is computed, what is included and how each item in the index is weighted — and include discussion about which items should be included and what weights they should be given. 
 
 This need not involve dumbing down. Researching the reliability of numbers can be as demanding as geometry. More and more colleges are requiring courses in “quantitative reasoning.” In fact, we should be starting that in kindergarten. 
 
 I hope that mathematics departments can also create courses in the history and philosophy of their discipline, as well as its applications in early cultures. Why not mathematics in art and music — even poetry — along with its role in assorted sciences? The aim would be to treat mathematics as a liberal art, making it as accessible and welcoming as sculpture or ballet. If we rethink how the discipline is conceived, word will get around and math enrollments are bound to rise. It can only help. Of the 1.7 million bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2010, only 15,396 — less than 1 percent — were in mathematics. 
 
 I’ve observed a host of high school and college classes, from Michigan to Mississippi , and have been impressed by conscientious teaching and dutiful students. I’ll grant that with an outpouring of resources, we could reclaim many dropouts and help them get through quadratic equations. But that would misuse teaching talent and student effort. It would be far better to reduce, not expand, the mathematics we ask young people to imbibe. (That said, I do not advocate vocational tracks for students considered, almost always unfairly, as less studious.) 
 
 Yes, young people should learn to read and write and do long division, whether they want to or not. But there is no reason to force them to grasp vectorial angles and discontinuous functions. Think of math as a huge boulder we make everyone pull, without assessing what all this pain achieves. So why require it, without alternatives or exceptions? Thus far I haven’t found a compelling answer.
– Here's how Guardian writer Oliver Burkeman describes a recent interview given by Will and Jaden Smith: "the most bizarre interview in Hollywood history," and one that "will make your brain hurt." The Q&A in question appeared in New York a few days ago, as the father and son promoted their new movie After Earth. Here's a relevant excerpt: Will: "I’m a student of patterns. At heart, I’m a physicist. I look at everything in my life as trying to find the single equation, the theory of everything." Jaden: "There's definitely a theory to everything. ... I think that there is that special equation for everything, but I don’t think our mathematics have evolved enough for us to even—I think there’s, like, a whole new mathematics that we’d have to learn to get that equation." Will: "I agree with that." Jaden: "It’s beyond mathematical. It’s, like, multidimensional mathematical, if you can sort of understand what I’m saying." Will, later: "And, the things about our family that are mysteries or seem strange, when they’re explained, it’ll be obvious. You know, the forum of media that we’re in can’t really handle the complexity of things that we say all the time." If you're thinking, "Well, what do you expect, they're Scientologists," not so fast. In the same interview, the elder Smith says they're not religious, but are "students of world religion" and "respect all [religions]." He has flat-out denied being a Scientologist in the past. (As for After Earth ... it got hilariously terrible reviews.)