Disney's live action remake of the 1992 film Aladdin will be released on Friday May 23rd and the film stars Will Smith as the iconic Genie, a role previously played by Robin Williams.
Will has been doing the rounds on all the biggest TV shows in America to promote his new film and he often talks about the huge shoes he had to fill, following the genius of Robin Williams' genie.
He told Jimmy Kimmel:
"I was terrified getting that first call. As a performer you want to go and you want to do things [...] but when you go into something that someone has already really given an iconic performance it can be scary"
Yeah, there's no topping Robin's genie - let's be honest.
But while chatting to Ellen he said that while Robin used his stand up comedy background to help create the character - Will decided to play to his own strengths:
"I could use my sort of Fresh Prince persona [...] because the genie has been forward and back in time so he can pull references from anywhere so I mirrored that and the hip hop end was where I saw I could put my own signature while maintaining the nostalgic value"
He also said that he was really nervous about taking on the role but really hit his stride and got into character when he started to record the music for the film.
You can catch his full chat with Ellen below:
