{"id":344849,"date":"2025-12-12T18:05:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T18:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/344849\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T18:05:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T18:05:07","slug":"bel-air-finale-filmed-two-endings-in-hopes-will-smith-would-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/344849\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Bel-Air’ Finale Filmed Two Endings in Hopes Will Smith Would Return"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBy now, it\u2019s no spoiler that Will Smith appears <\/a>in the final minutes of Bel-Air<\/a>, the dramatic re-imagining of the iconic \u201890s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air<\/a> that premiered on the then-new streamer Peacock back in 2022 and concluded this week. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe original series helped launch the rapper-turned-actor\u2019s colossal Hollywood career. In the Bel-Air series finale, the new and old Wills share a moment as Jabari Banks\u2019 Bel-Air Will is returning to Philly, where he will attend Ivy League powerhouse the University of Pennsylvania, to take in one last sweeping view of Los Angeles. As he contemplates the many ways living with \u201chis aunt and uncle in Bel-Air\u201d has changed his life, he also worries he might lose the essence of his evolution back in his beloved city. That\u2019s when future Fresh Prince Will Smith<\/a> appears to reassure his younger self about the future.<\/p>\n

\n\tNailing that magical ending fell on Carla Banks Waddles who joined the Bel-Air journey in the first season as a consultant before elevating to showrunner. Putting in extra duty, she penned the final episode titled \u201cThe Next Act,\u201d which Bel-Air creator Morgan Stevenson Cooper<\/a> directed. Tying it all up was more challenging with eight episodes instead of 10, she tells The Hollywood Reporter. In all, it was \u201ca year\u2019s process from the [start of the] writers room to post ending,\u201d she shares.<\/p>\n

\n\tBefore they could wrap the series, however, they had to address season three cliffhangers like the death of Hilary\u2019s (Coco Jones) pro football husband Lamarcus (Justin Cornwell) during their honeymoon, Viv\u2019s pregnancy, Will\u2019s kidnapping and Geoffrey\u2019s disappearance, among other loose ends without ignoring the larger issues at play.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere are so many buttons this show hits, and one of them is real conversations Black families would be having at this time,\u201d she says. \u201cA lot of the conversation in the writers room was, \u2018It\u2019s a time capsule.\u2019 So when you look back at this show, even when you look back at the original, there are things that were going on in the world that were captured as sort of a snapshot in time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSeason four, she says, captured \u201ca lot of the DEI stuff that\u2019s going on and how it\u2019s not being seen as important, but also how Black people and people in the culture who are tired of always doing the work are tired and sort of protecting our peace and our joy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAdrian Holmes, who plays Uncle Phil, couldn\u2019t be prouder of what Bel-Air has achieved. \u201cWe\u2019re not defined by our struggle. We\u2019re not defined by our trauma,\u201d he tells THR. \u201cWe\u2019re showing the joy, the ambition, the resilience. We\u2019re showing the other side of the coin of who we are as a culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHis real-life wife, actress Caroline Chikezie \u2014 best known for her role as organized crime head Noma on the Starz series Power Book II: Ghost produced by Curtis \u201c50 Cent\u201d Jackson \u2014 joining the final season made it all the more special for him.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s our first time sharing the screen together,\u201d he says of their adversarial roles in which Uncle Phil works to pry his friend and found family, Geoffrey, away the organized crime clutches of her character Dominique. \u201cWe got to create history,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\n\tCassandra Freeman, who plays Holmes\u2019s on-screen wife Vivian Banks or \u201cAunt Viv,\u201d can\u2019t praise Banks Waddles and her leadership enough. But her real superpower, Freeman tells The Hollywood Reporter, is her ability to recognize and acknowledge everyone from behind the scenes, on screen and at home. \u201cI feel like her theme is: I see you. She\u2019s not interested in going off course. She\u2019s like, \u2018No, let people see themselves now so they feel like they are being seen.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBel-Air, notes Banks Waddles,\u00a0welcomed OG Fresh Prince stars from the very beginning. The second Aunt Viv, Daphne Maxwell Reid, and Vernee Watson-Johnson, who played Will\u2019s original mom Vy, showed up in the first season, and OG Geoffrey Joseph Marcell appeared in season three as part of Jimmy Akingbola\u2019s Geoffrey\u2019s criminal past in the UK.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut, for this final season, Banks Waddles and her team delivered the big guns with original Aunt Viv, Janet Hubert, and OG Jackie, Tyra Banks, respectively, showing up in different roles as Iris, the doula who helps bring Baby Nicky into the world, and Viv\u2019s sorority sister frenemy Regina Baxter now heading up their beloved sorority. Below, Bank Waddles shares the details of how she and her team pulled off those awesome fan moments, along with what makes her most proud of the show they created.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tHow did you pull off the huge coup of original Aunt Viv Janet Hubert and new Aunt Viv Cassandra Freeman sharing the screen together? And how did you decide this was the perfect way for her to be a part of something new, but also something foundational?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s always so nice to have the OG cast. It\u2019s part of Bel-Air, and people love that. But we never wanted it to feel forced or gimmicky or have anyone say, \u201cThey just wanted somebody back, so they threw them in that role.\u201d We knew that we were going to have a doula character, and we knew we wanted to build towards the birth of baby Nicky. So when we thought about Janet Hubert and wanting her to be on the show this season, that felt like the perfect role. Having OG Aunt Viv with our current Aunt Viv delivering baby Nicky all over again felt like such a poetic way to bring her back.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe embodied that character. When she walked on set, her dialogue and the way she interacted was beautiful. It was clear to everybody that this was perfect. You can have somebody in mind, and sometimes it just doesn\u2019t work out with scheduling. She was coming from the East Coast, and you just never know if they will have a conflict. So all the stars aligned to get her here, and she wanted to be here. She was proud of Cassie and how she\u2019s re-imagined that character. It felt full circle to have her on set.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow did you decide what role Tyra Banks would play, and that it would center this theme of healing female relationships?<\/p>\n

\n\tWe wanted to hide who Regina Baxter was going to be. So in that sixth episode when her sorority sister, who we\u2019ve heard all these things about and know [Viv] didn\u2019t have a great relationship with and \u201cwho wasn\u2019t a great person and was really tough on me when I was pledging\u201d and now \u2018this horror story is in my house,\u201d when she turns around and it\u2019s Tyra Banks, you weren\u2019t expecting that. To Tyra\u2019s credit when I had conversations with her, she wanted to do the show. She was obviously OG Jackie, so it meant a lot for her to come back and be a part of this final season. She also traveled to get to L.A. to shoot her scenes. She wanted to be here.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn one of our conversations, she said, \u201cI don\u2019t want this to be a caricature of a Black woman just being somebody who\u2019s mean for mean sake. What else is there behind her?\u2019 So even though it was only two scenes, it was such a powerful moment for her to speak about her own trauma and how she was raised; a mom who wanted the best for her kid, but brought her own trauma and taught her to be strong before she taught her to just be soft, and that she\u2019s had this armor up and that\u2019s how she presented in life. That\u2019s what made her cold and mean. Being able to have some healing between friends, these two Black women, and saying, \u201cLet that shit go.\u201d Even Hillary got some catharsis. It felt like such a meaningful role. Even though it was a short one, it spoke to something real.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo then talk about Will Smith. How did you guys bring that home? When did you know you were going to do it? Because that moment of having the two Wills together is so iconic.<\/p>\n

\n\tI know. Again, you don\u2019t know if a plan is going to come together. You just pray and hope. We had to pitch out the season to the studio and network and to our producing partners. We pitched that we wanted him in this finale, and they weren\u2019t sure if he was going to be available. So we held on to hope, and it was on our board the whole season. But with travel, his schedule; he wasn\u2019t even in the States. Some days it looked hopeful, and some days it was like it was just not going to happen: \u201cGuys, you know he wants to do it, he wants to be here, but he is booked every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSo we had two endings, one with him and one without him, and we found out maybe two weeks before we wrapped that he was going to be here and he was going to be available. So we shot both endings, and he stepped in. After we wrapped, we had one scene left, and that was his scene. So we were able to get him to just shoot that scene with Jabari. It felt like a great moment to have the two of them in a scene talking to each other about the future and just saying, \u201cWe\u2019re going to be alright. So all that uncertainty that you\u2019re carrying right now into your next act? Don\u2019t worry about it. You\u2019re going to live a life. There\u2019s going to be some ups and downs but you\u2019re going to be okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat felt very poetic and perfect for him to be with us in this final season, because this is it. Everybody was just so excited that it worked out. It\u2019s a great moment for the fans.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd finally, what do you want the ultimate takeaway to be about the work you\u2019ve done on this series? What are you most proud of that you accomplished, and what will you take with you into the future with you?<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m most proud of this Black family on television. Similar to the original, it was a family that we were proud of \u2014\u00a0that we wanted to live with, that we aspired to be, that we struggled with. I want people to be able to look back on this, and kudos to all the writers and crew and directors and cast for being part of what I think is going to be a huge legacy of looking back and being proud of this Black family and the stories we were able to tell.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tAll four seasons of Bel-Air can be streamed on Peacock.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By now, it\u2019s no spoiler that Will Smith appears in the final minutes of Bel-Air, the dramatic re-imagining…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[139016,88,172512,92,4277],"class_list":["post-344849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-bel-air","tag-entertainment","tag-the-fresh-prince-of-bel-air","tag-tv","tag-will-smith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}