The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is about to become king.
Will Smith has reportedly signed on to play Venus and Serena Williams’s father, Richard, in the upcoming film King Richard, and no, it has nothing to do with Shakespeare or the British monarchy.
The story, written by newcomer Zach Baylin, centers on the man who crafted his daughters’ tennis careers despite having no tennis background himself. It follows Williams’s real-life decision to whip up a 78-page plan for his young girls’ professional careers and tracks their rise from the dilapidated and underutilized tennis courts of Compton, California, all the way to the world stage.
Regardless of his lack of training, Williams coached his daughters to become two of the greatest female tennis players in history (Serena has 23 Grand Slam tournament wins and Venus has 7 Grand Slam titles). And he fought to get them there (sometimes literally) with all he had, ignoring skepticism and battling hardships and his demons head on.