Will Smith is ‘incensed’ by the state of politics, might join the fray ‘in the near future’

America is the only place on Earth that Will Smith can exist, he says — and he thinks America might need his assistance in the near future, in the political arena.

“As I look at the political landscape, I think that there might be a future out there for me,” the movie star told the Hollywood Reporter in a wide-ranging 45-minute podcast posted Wednesday. “They might need me out there.”

The self-described climber — “I’m not a camper. If there’s a mountain there, I’m going to climb it.” — said that this year is the first time politics has “incensed” him to a level where he can’t sleep.

“I’m feeling that at some point in the near future I will have to lend my voice to the conversation in a somewhat different way,” said Smith, whose new movie, “Concussion,” about the doctor who first discovered traumatic brain injury in a pro football player, opens on Christmas.

Of course, entering the political arena means he’d be subjected to a higher level of scrutiny than he has been to this point. He said he’s thankful he’s had the amount of privacy he lucked into by getting into the game ahead of the Internet and has been able to create an air of mystery he thinks is crucial to being a Movie Star.

“If I had to grow up in the age of the Internet and Twitter,” the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” star said, “there’d be a very, very different story that would be written.”

But any additional loss of privacy that politics could entail might be balanced out by being able to make himself “useful to people in this lifetime,” which is something he thinks his grandmother always wanted him to do. And he has reverence for this country.

“I feel like ... America is the only place on Earth that I could exist. No other country on Earth produces Will Smiths. No other country on Earth produces Denzel Washingtons, you know, or Oprah Winfreys ... or Barack Obamas. So, if you look back historically at how black people have had it on the planet, you know, America is elevating quite well based on the history of our people.”

The power of that American Dream, he said, is also one thing he wants people to take away from his newest big-screen effort.

Sounds like a campaign for something larger than an Oscar nomination might be right around the corner....

Follow Christie D’Zurilla on Twitter @theCDZ and Google+. Follow the Ministry of Gossip on Twitter @LATcelebs.

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