-Our next guest is a talented actor who you know
from his work as the new Fresh Prince
on Peacock's most-streamed original series, "Bel-Air."
All ten episodes are streaming now on Peacock.
Let's take a look.
-There is a house full of people in Bel-Air
that want you around, man.
All you gotta do is get in your car and go back.
I promise, everything will work itself out.
-No.
It's done.
It's over.
You told me that this city would try to make me forget
who I am and where I come from.
And you were right.
-Please welcome to the show, Jabari Banks, everybody!
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Welcome to the show! How are you?
-Oh, I'm great. Great.
Excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
-I'm so happy to have you. Congratulations on this show.
For those who haven't seen it, they might recognize
from the clip, this is more a reimagining than a remake.
This is a dramatic retelling of the "Fresh Prince" story.
When you first heard that they were doing that,
what was your first reaction.
-I was like, "No. No. No way."
And then I actually saw the trailer
that Morgan Cooper posted on YouTube,
and I watched it and I was like, "Okay, I can get with this."
-Yeah.
-And I couldn't imagine that two years later,
I'd be, you know, in this seat.
-Now, I do have to point out that you were not alive
when this show was on TV. -No, no.
-But what was your level of familiarity with "Fresh Prince"?
-I am a "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" fanatic.
My family had the six-season box set.
We have Will Smith Christmas sweaters.
We love the show.
-Okay, so you did know the show, then.
-Yes. Oh, for sure. For sure.
-And this is very interesting --
in real life, true story, you have an Uncle Phil.
-I do. His name is James Brogan.
-Okay, now, neither of those names are Phil.
-Right. No, no, no. But he lives in Philly.
I lived with him in Philly, so we called him Uncle Phil.
-Okay. Gotcha. -Yeah.
-Are a lot of Uncle Phils different people's names,
but they're from Philadelphia?
-Yeah, not really. Not really. -Okay.
-He's the only one. He's special to us.
-I mean, it does seem like those
are a lot of like sort of maybe, you know,
harbingers that you would be in a "Fresh Prince" one day,
that you had an Uncle Phil
who wasn't even a real Uncle Phil.
-I know, right? It's kind of strange, yeah.
-And then it was your dad, your dad was the one
who thought this would be a good part for you.
-Yes. He sent me an article.
He was like, "They're casting for Bel-Air.
You should do this. Check it out.
Call someone and figure it out."
And I was like, "Okay, I'll try."
And then actually a couple of months later,
my people actually gave me the call.
-'Cause your dad's not in show business.
He just reads articles and sends you ideas?
-Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
He's super supportive and I love that.
-I'm lucky enough to have one of those as well.
But now that you've got the part,
do you think he walks around telling everybody,
"You know this was my idea."
-Yeah.
I'm sure he does.
He's actually in the audience right now.
-Oh, well, that's great! Well, let me tell you.
[ Cheers and applause ] -Shout out to my dad.
Yeah.
-You go take all that credit.
-Exactly. -You take all that credit.
-Yeah.
-That would be -- my dad would take the credit,
if he pointed it out.
So you auditioned for it,
and you know, I think this was one of those parts
where you cast a wide net.
You're trying to find, you know, lightning in a bottle,
and tell us how you found out you got the part.
-So Will actually called me on FaceTime.
I actually got onto the call thinking
that it was an audition, right?
So Morgan Cooper was like,
"We want to do one more creative session with you."
And I was like, "What does that mean?"
So I had all my sides lined up.
I was like, "I'm gonna give them everything that I have."
And I got on the call and Will surprised me.
And that was the moment that changed my life.
-Had you met him through the process?
-No, no.
-Oh, so the first time you saw Will Smith
was him telling you that you were going to be him in this.
That's pretty cool. -Yeah, it was very surreal.
-That is a very cool thing. -Yeah.
My life literally got flipped, turned upside down.
-Yeah, it did get flipped, turned upside down.
And then how did you celebrate?
Is that news that you can even celebrate or is it too big?
-Oh, no, I just went to sleep. -You went to sleep?
-Yeah, I just went straight to sleep.
Yeah. It was too much emotion in my body. It was a lot.
-I'm impressed that you could go to sleep,
but that speaks well to your ability to have an even keel.
-Oh, I can sleep anywhere.
I could sleep right here if I wanted to.
-I'm like that, too. Very good at that.
Now you have -- you're the youngest of five boys.
-Yes.
-How do they feel about your success?
Are they as supportive as... -Oh, they're so jealous.
-Yeah? Good. -No, I'm joking.
No, no, they're very supportive and they love the show.
And we have a group chat and they talk about it
all the time and they're like, "No spoilers, no spoilers."
And I just love seeing all the messages, yeah.
-Did you guys, were you as you grew up,
were you the kind of kids who always got along,
or did you wail on each other? -Oh, no.
Oh, a lot of fights during the summer, but healthy fights.
-And you're low man on the totem pole,
so did you take it pretty bad in back in the day?
-Yeah, I got it bad. I got it real bad.
-Alright, Good. -Yeah, but that, you know,
that gave me the strength to carry on, you know?
-Yeah. I'm glad. I'm glad you rose above it.
You got nominated for a BET Award for Best Actor.
Congratulations. That's a very cool thing.
[ Applause ] -Thanks.
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.
Super excited about that. Yeah.
-And you're gonna start shooting a second season in September,
which is also great news. -Yeah, Season 2 on the way.
[ Applause ]
-We were talking backstage,
'cause I would say, you know, you got some time,
and you were telling me you're going to work on music.
So that's still a passion for you?
-Yes, music was actually my first passion.
And a lot of people ask me, they're like,
"Do you love music more or acting more?"
And I was like, it's like choosing between your children.
But yeah, music was my first love,
and I'm returning to it soon.
-So when you went to school,
you went to, like, an art school?
-An art school in Philadelphia. University of the Arts.
And I studied musical theater, so music and acting
all at the same time, yeah, and I loved it.
-When did you fall in love with musical theater?
Was that something you found in high school?
-Yeah, something I found in high school.
The first show I did was "The Wiz,"
where I really fell in love with it.
-Who were you in "The Wiz"? -I was the lion.
-The lion? -I wanted to be the scarecrow,
but they didn't have too many guys, you know,
so they put me as a lion.
-And when you find out you got the lion,
did they have an actual lion FaceTime you and tell you?
-Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
It's dope, because my mom actually made the costume.
-Really? -Yeah.
-My parents are very supportive.
-That's fantastic. -She's in the audience too.
[ Applause ] -Here we go!
-Yeah, yeah.
-I was a Wilbur in a production of "Charlotte's Web."
-No way. -This is a true story.
You know, congratulations on all your success
and further acting work.
But my mom said we read -- she goes,
"I found your old Wilbur costume that we made."
And I was like, "Oh, I don't really remember it."
And it was just a t-shirt, and then there were, like,
iron-on letters that spelled out "SOME PIG."
-Yeah, right, right. -And I was like...
I've got a feeling your mom did a better job
with your lion costume. -Yeah. No, she did.
-And so is this something, did your parents,
did your older siblings,
did they all know from a young age
that this was the path you were going to go on,
that you were gonna follow this?
-Well, we all played sports growing up,
so we thought in some form or fashion
that we were going to be in the league of...some league.
No, they had no clue. -Gotcha.
So you were good at sports, too?
'Cause a lot of my coaches were like,
"You should do comedy."
-No, I was pretty good at sports.
-What was your sport? What was your big one?
-Basketball and football. -Okay, gotcha.
-Basketball. Loved basketball.
I thought I was going to go to the NBA.
-But it does seem like
they're really supportive, so when you tell everybody,
"Hey, I'm gonna go to this performing arts college,"
was everybody, like, over the moon?
-Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
That was the only college I got into.
-Okay. [ Laughing ]
-But my parents, they made sure I went to school.
-That's great.
What were your other jobs, before you get a job
as big as being the Fresh Prince?
-I had a lot of different jobs, actually.
I worked at Six Flags as Bugs Bunny.
-Really? -Yeah.
-Hopefully, they made the costume in that case.
-They did, yeah. For sure.
I only worked there for one day, though.
-One day? What happened?
-The eye holes were, like, this big.
-Oh, you gave up the job. -I gave up. Oh, yeah, for sure.
It was in April. Yeah.
So it wasn't even the summer yet.
-Yeah. -It was going to get hotter.
-It was a hot day at Six Flags? -I was like, no way.
But actually, before I got the "Bel-Air" gig,
I was working in a manufacturing factory
in Temecula, California.
-What were you doing at the Temecula factory?
-I was wrapping gutters. -Wrapping gutters?
So when you got, when Will Smith called,
was it a situation where you said,
"Let me think about it?"
-Oh, no way. No, no, no. Not at all.
No, I had actually gotten fired from that job.
I was working there for a month.
I don't do well with, you know...[ Laughing ]
And so this is a situation where, do you think
the person who fired you from the gutter wrapping job
is aware of what's happened since?
-Oh, I hope they are. I hope they are.
I hope you're watching this.
[ Applause ]
-The Bugs Bunny thing is really interesting to me,
because I didn't think the small eye holes would be something --
You feel like they would have solved that problem.
-It's awful. Yeah. -Yeah.
-They have a small, little fan in there,
and they think that that would suffice, but no.
-Like a little electric fan? -A little electric fan, yeah.
-Okay, near your ear? Is it like...?
-It's like, somewhere up there. I don't remember where.
-And it doesn't get the job done?
-No, not at all. -Yeah.
-And I spent my whole paycheck on the food there.
-Okay.
-Yeah, this is really not...
I feel bad that they're our main sponsor tonight.
[ Laughter ]
-Oh, God.
Shout out to Six Flags.
-Sure, shout out to Six Flags. I mean, obviously.
I mean, I think a lot of this was Jabari's fault.
-Yeah. Oh, for sure.
-Hey, man congratulations so much on the show.
It's really such a cool thing.
I think, like, everyone, there was this,
"What are they going to do with it?"
And it's so cool how they nailed the landing,
and it's really amazing that they found you.
You're so great at it.
Thanks for being here, my friend.
-Thank you, man. -Really appreciate it.
Jabari Banks, everybody!
The entire first season of "Bel-Air"
is streaming now on Peacock.
We'll be right back with more "Late Night."