Will Smith talks about the failure of 'After Earth' and his new attitude for 'Focus'

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 26 (UPI) -- Will Smith confesses the failure of his 2013 science-fiction movie After Earth made him rethink his career, so he had a completely new attitude when he was offered the lead role in the con-artist comedy-drama Focus.

Written and directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the film co-stars Margot Robbie, Rodrigo Santoro, Gerald McRaney and B.D. Wong. It is about a con man whose ex-girlfriend and former partner in crime arrives and jeopardizes his latest high-stakes scam.

"This film really marks a transition in my life, emotionally and in my career. After the failure of After Earth, a thing got broken in my mind," Smith said at a recent Los Angeles press conference.

"I was like: 'Oh, wow, I'm still alive. Oh, wow. Actually, I still am me, even though the movie didn't open at No. 1. Wait I still can get hired on another movie,'" explained the 46-year-old married father of two teenagers. "All those things in my mind. My entire Mr. July, Big Willie Weekend, No. 1 eight in a row [identity...] All of that thing got collapsed and I realized I still was a good person, so when I went into Focus, I completely released the concept of goal orientation and got into path orientation. This moment. This second. These people. This interaction and it is a huge relief for me to not care whether or not Focus is No.1 or No. 10 at the box office. I've already gained everything that I could possibly have hoped for from meeting the people that I met and from the creation of what we did together. It's just painting. I'm going to paint and some paintings are going to be fantastic. Others are going to not be so good, but I no longer measure the quality of myself on whether or not somebody else thinks what I painted is beautiful."

Focus is to open in U.S. theaters Friday.