Will Smith calls 'After Earth' flop the 'most painful failure' he's had in his career

Will Smith is getting candid about the biggest upset of his career. He admitted to Esquire he was devastated when After Earth flopped in 2013.

After Earth also starred Smith’s son, Jaden, now 16, so that’s why it was “excruciating” for him to handle the bad reviews and box office failure.

“That was the most painful failure in my career,” he said. “Wild Wild West was less painful than After Earth, because my son was involved in After Earth and I led him into it. That was excruciating.”

But like anything else in life, pain often leads to growth, and Smith definitely learned a valuable lesson from it.

"What I learned from that failure is how you win. I got reinvigorated after the failure of After Earth,” he said. “I stopped working for a year and a half. I had to dive into why it was so important for me to have number-one movies. And I never would have looked at myself in that way.”

Smith’s next film Focus hits theaters Feb. 27, which also stars Wolf of Wall Street’s Margot Robbie.

image via Famous/ACE/INFphoto.com