Original subtitles

Smith: The ocean was a massive, scary place.

I'm terrified of the ocean,

And the center of that terror is the sharks that are

Swimming in that ocean.

♪♪

My heart is pounding out of my chest

And I just can't settle it down.

I just wanted to start leaning into my fear.

I was going to start looking at it.

I was going to start facing it.

♪♪

♪♪

It was like, if it's today, it's today.

♪♪

♪♪

Skydiving was scary.

The heli bungee jump was really, really scary.

Aah!

But there's something about the ocean.

I'm much more comfortable in the sky than I am in the ocean.

That's a scary look.

That's definitely a scary look.

And that's my first time

I've ever seen a bunch of sharks hanging out, feeding.

In my mind, I was in a cage.

I wasn't, like, diving free, wide open with the sharks.

But...

W.T.F.

♪♪

At 40 is when I started to learn how to swim.

I grew up in philly

And, you know, kelly's pool was the only pool,

And it would be like 437,000 kids in the pool.

♪♪

We would go to atlantic city,

And I never really liked the beach,

And it was something

That has never really come alive in my mind.

I'm terrified of the ocean, and the center of that terror

Is the sharks that are swimming in that ocean.

Probably about 10 years ago, I looked up

And I had accomplished many of the things

That I had always dreamed.

As a spiritual practice,

I decided I was going to stop

And I was going to start confronting everything

That I had the slightest hint of fear.

I was going to start looking at it.

I was going to start facing it.

And the ocean was a big one for me.

I've had a memory my whole life of almost drowning

When I was a little boy,

And I've had this story in my mind of what happened

And I almost drowned and my mother had

To pull me out of the ocean and all of that.

And I may have been 40,

And I brought that up to my mother, and she's like, "what?"

She's like, "that never -- that didn't happen."

And I was like -- my whole life,

I had a deep, serious memory of drowning.

And my mother's like, "boy,

You wouldn't even get in the water.

You wouldn't even put your foot in the water."

Fear is the biological, physiological, emotional,

Psychological response

That we have to any kind of imminent threat,

Whether that imminent threat is real or imagined.

My name is dr. Judy ho.

I'm a clinical and forensic neuropsychologist.

Just like many things in life,

When things are going well, you don't actually notice it.

So when fear is actually getting you out of a burning building,

That's not the time when you notice that your body,

Your brain feels off.

When you notice it is when your fear is actually a fear

For a imagined threat, not really a real one.

When people have anxiety, for example,

What they experience is this overdrive of fear

That keeps going and going for hours and even days.

So your body tries to push it away.

But the more that we try to push fear away and not process it

And not conquer it, the more it comes back and haunts you later,

And that's how phobias develop.

I blame steven spielberg.

Steven spielberg ruined any possibility

That I would ever enjoy the ocean.

I was literally scared in the bathtub.

I literally felt like a shark could come out of the spout.

After I saw "jaws," I was like,

"oh, man, I might not never even take a bath again."

We done. We done with water.

Smile, you son of a --

I made a conscious decision, I'm going to take this next year

And I'm going to develop a relationship with mother ocean.

I had always wanted to see the great barrier reef,

So I was like, "I'm gonna go to australia.

I'm gonna do it right. I'm gonna do a dive."

So let's go back, way back.

My first dive.

So, we're about to scuba dive the great barrier reef.

I've never scuba diven -- scuba dove -- scuba --

I've never been scuba divish before.

Probably 25 years old in my mind,

And I knew that I would be here one day, so I'm ready.

I'm ready.

Whoa!

Geez!

There are sharks swimming around.

I'm almost as scared as I can be.

Then your mind starts in. "dude, this is stupid."

Wow, that's crazy!

That's what you call australian bull[bleep].

Can you ask them to stop attracting the shark

To this area?

They're trying to attract the sharks.

Why would they do that?

This is stupid. This is stupid.

Is it okay to punch sharks in the face?

You're like, "back up with your shark ass.

Back up with your shark ass!

Shark ass, back up!"

Shark jab, shark jab.

I got it.

Had a heart, shortness of breath,

And it's, like, just trying to be meditative.

Ooooooooom.

When you're scared, you lose your faculties.

♪♪

So you can't see, you can't hear, you can't think.

The fear consumes all of your attention and all of your mind.

♪♪

♪♪

It's really weird to breathe underwater.

Like, your mind doesn't want to take a deep breath underwater.

You try to get that -- [ inhales deeply ]

[ exhales deeply ]

But your mind doesn't want to take a deep breath underwater,

So I was -- [ mimics ragged breathing ]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

I have very few memories of the great barrier reef

Because my eyes weren't working because I was so scared.

Well, I'll spit blood when I come up.

I don't know what that's from.

Do you spit blood when you come up?

No? Okay.

Nobody spits blood?

Gonna get a cold now.

The first fish we see is a shark!

Come on!

Am I cold or is that my nerves?

It's not cold, right?

It's like I feel like I'm cold.

The ability to enjoy something

Is deeply hampered by fear.

I'm not doing another dive today.

So, my first dive was kind of a psychological

And emotional tragedy.

Alright, so let's flash-forward.

♪♪

We are in the bahamas.

My whole life, I've been terrified of the ocean.

The bahamas has a shark population,

So now I'm going to get in the water and swim with sharks.

I want to confront my fear of sharks.

So, in the process of me setting out to conquer my fear,

I wanted to meet people who had traveled that journey.

Mr. Cove.

Mr. Smith, it's a pleasure, man, it's a pleasure.

All mine, all mine, all mine.

It's been a lifelong fear of mine.

It's important to me to conquer this fear of sharks.

They say that you're the best.

So I wanted to work with the best of the best

To get my my training right

Just to be prepared for anything that could potentially occur.

What we're going to do is we're going to put you

Into a very brief padi discover scuba course,

Teach you the basics of scuba diving

So you won't hurt yourself by the scuba itself.

Have you ever been bitten by a shark?

I've been bitten by a shark many times.

Damn!

So I brought two friends with me.

Both of these guys grew up in the ocean

And they know it inside out and backwards.

You know, scoty -- he's from trinidad.

He's lived his whole life in the water with sharks

And with eels and piranha.

Aaron is australian.

Okay, they deal with all kinds of crazy stuff in the ocean.

So I wanted to have the friends with me

That I knew would be able to say,

"no, don't do that, don't go there."

And also, scoty has dreads.

So I figured at a minimum underwater his dreads

Would look like food.

So the sharks would at least get him first

And I'd have a chance to go.

Get a good shot of that.

We'll expand it in post.

[ laughter ]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

The ocean is a living organism.

Then your mind starts in, that inner roommate.

I guess a shark feels like a stalker,

But you can't get a restraining order.

Smith: I'm terrified of the ocean,

And the center of that terror is the sharks.

Is it okay to punch sharks in the face?

We are in the bahamas.

I'm going to get in the water and swim with sharks.

I can swim a little bit, but not when the ocean is swimming too.

♪♪

It's like the ocean was counter-swimming,

So it throws off your ability to be able to maneuver.

♪♪

♪♪

Oh, man.

Wow.

The ocean don't give a damn.

If you could see 360 degrees around you,

That would be really different, but you can't.

You know, so it's like you look and something's

Right there, you know?

I think tomorrow I'm going to look

And it's going to be a shark.

[ laughs ]

The fear of the unknown is one of the most interesting

And mysterious things about the human mind.

The reason why the fear of the unknown exists for many people

Is because the unknown makes us feel out of control.

And when human beings feel out of control,

That fight or flight kicks in.

What if I can't get a handle on this situation?

♪♪

Smith: We are in the bahamas.

My whole life, I've been terrified of sharks,

So I got some really, really, really smart people

To help me conquer this lifelong fear of sharks.

Being a master shark diver,

Paul de gelder was definitely at the top of the list.

What's up, man? Hey!

Nice to meet ya.

What's going on, man?

So here's the thing about paul.

He wrote a book called "no time for fear,"

And he lost an arm and a leg to a bull shark.

There's one golden nugget that I was taught

Way in the early days of my shark diving

When I first started out.

Don't act like food and they won't treat you like food.

Alright, so how does food act, right?

Skittish, they run away.

They run away. Yeah, don't act like food.

Alright. Alright.

The fact that you're willing to confront this fear

Head-on, in the shark's realm...

Aah! Just hearing you say that.

[ laughter ]

That's brave. Yeah.

Yeah, I got to give it to you, man.

Especially, you know, you're will smith.

Do you really want to put yourself at that sort of risk?

Uh, no. No, I don't, actually.

But I feel that there's a part of me that has to.

Paul is one of those people who had lost so many things.

All he was left with was conquering his mind.

I've achieved everything I've ever dreamed.

And the the major thing that I'm still seeking

Is I know it's more than that.

I know that my fear of the unknown

Is keeping me from that divine wisdom.

When I came face to face with my worst nightmare,

I was being eaten alive.

I was drowning. I was under the water

And I accept the fact that I was going to die.

Once you face death like that and you come to the realization,

There's nothing left to fear.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Talking to paul and hearing the things that he experienced

And the conquering of his mind

That he had to do after that loss

To be able to come back to life in the way that he did,

That's exactly what I was looking for.

When you're not afraid to die, you're no longer afraid to live.

♪♪

Too much... Slash chew toy.

I lost one when I was diving with the great whites,

And I fell through the cage,

So this kid made me a new one, a chew toy.

Chew toy on it.

This just allows me to hold on to poles and stuff,

So, when I'm, like, playing tug of war with the shark,

With will between us.

[ laughter ]

That's terrible. That's terrible.

That's terrible.

Everyone seems to think sharks are malleable.

It's like they're unpredictable.

When you look at a shark diver that has lost an arm

And has lost a leg, you know, it creates pause because,

You know he's either the best or the worst in the world.

And you just -- you can't be quite sure.

But once you talk to paul, you know what it is.

Cove: Let's get will in.

Smith: I grew up as a fearful child.

God placed the greatest things in life on the other side

Of your biggest fears.

♪♪

The ocean's alive.

The ocean is moving and changing

And adjusting and reacting and responding.

The ocean's talking to you the whole time

And you hope it's not

Saying something you don't want to hear.

Probably about the time working on "after earth,"

I got introduced to that just low din of fear.

I'm always running from that fear.

♪♪

And then I started to realize how poisonous fear can be.

♪♪

It steals your ability to be able to enjoy life.

♪♪

I'm going to take this next year

And I'm going to develop a relationship

With mother ocean.

You're will smith.

Do you really want to put yourself

At that sort of risk?

Head-on in the shark's realm.

Aah!

I grew up as a fearful child.

The greatest things in life

On the other side of your biggest fears.

The ocean's talking to you the whole time and you hope

It's not saying something you don't want to hear.

Do you spit blood when you come up?

♪♪

♪♪

Whew! I'm gonna sit right here.

[ sighs ]

Whoa! Yeah, that was a shock.

You got to warn somebody about that.

It's a shark!

So when you -- like, when you see a shark,

I can't be certain how I'm going to react and respond

When there's like two or three meters

Worth of shark running around.

Alright, so let's flash-forward.

So, you know, I got in a couple of dives under my belt.

I recovered from the first dive, and I started feeling confident.

And then I had my family on vacation.

So I felt like, you know, I had 2, 2 1/2 dives

Under my belt, it was time to teach my kids.

As a parent, you know, I'm conquering my fear,

I think it's important that I have to do that with my kids.

I feel like I may not know everything to do,

But I definitely know all the stuff not to do

From my first dive.

[ speaking italian ]

The instructor didn't speak english.

[ speaking italian ]

♪♪

As I look back, that might have been --

They might have probably should have had instruction in english.

[ speaking italian ]

The way it works in my family is if I can convince willow --

That's my partner right there.

Once I convince willow, then if willow says yes,

That she's going to go and, you know, dive

And she wants to see a shark, then her brothers feel like,

"well, damn, you know, if our little sister doing it,

Then I got to go too."

But what's the worst that can happen?

♪♪

All of my kids are pretty fearless in different ways.

Jaden is emotionally fearless.

Trey pretty much is down for anything.

No.

[ laughter ]

Willow's physically fearless.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to love this.

I love adventuring. I love the water.

I'm an adventurer.

♪♪

♪♪

Smith: Li-pari, right?

Lipari, lipari island.

Lipari island. We're on lipari island.

And we're headed out for our first dive.

Oh, man, yes, I'm very excited.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

It's different when you take your kids down.

It's one thing to, you know,

Confront the fears and do it by yourself,

But then when your kids are there, it's a little different.

♪♪

♪♪

Willow's gangster.

We went down to about 60 feet

And the edge of her goggles kept coming open

And she kept getting water in and she couldn't see underwater.

I was terrified. I was like, "oh, no,

This is the one where daddy goes wrong."

She had to take her goggles off, change goggles,

Put them on and clear underwater at 60 feet.

She goes good, gets herself together,

And then swims off and I was like, "I'm a hero.

I'm the best dad in the world. Let's get out of here."

♪♪

We really just did that as a family.

That was crazy.

We were underwater for 30 minutes.

Wow. That was the craziest thing I've ever done, hands down.

The craziest thing I've ever done

In my whole life, definitely.

That was the tightest thing I've ever done in my life!

I have to say that that was amazing.

My dad's crazy, but that was [bleep] amazing.

That was a little bit beyond the cute family dive.

[ laughter ]

The deepest thing that I got from scuba diving --

If you're scared, you can't see beauty, right?

Fear kills your ability to see beauty.

-Wow. -Right?

You have to get beyond fear back to a comfortable space

Before you can even start looking around.

Exactly.

Pretty much after that family trip,

You know, I felt like I was ready now

For the other terror of the ocean for me.

I felt like it was time for the sharks.

Alright, so it comes to the day of the dive.

Didn't sleep well last night.

Alright, so we're going to swim with sharks.

That even sounds stupid now.

It is stupid.

Scoty, how are you feeling this morning?

Not good. I have to shake this energy.

Alright, so you know what?

If sharks can detect fear, we're gonna throw you in first.

Well, that's the damn thing.

That's why I need to shake it off.

Alright, let's go. Let's go.

I'm not -- I'm not scared of no sharks.

So we're walking down the pier on our way to get on the boat,

To go to the dive site.

And the dive captain comes with some news.

The scariest part is you have to jump into the lemon sharks

Because you're gonna have about 20 or 30 lemons on top.

Smith: So hold on. So -- so I'm going to need you guys

To get the lemon sharks out of there, okay?

Aaron: What you say? There's lemon sharks?

-Lemon sharks. -They're really feisty.

Uh --

Whoa,whoa, so you saying that you got to jump through them?

Well, they'll be around the boat and then you just go down.

Scoty: Why would they be around the boat?

Smith: [ laughs ]

Because we're feeding them.

Well, if you don't throw food, then we won't have to jump in.

Yeah, but you guys are gonna be okay.

Alright, alright, alright, I feel you.

Lemon sharks are called lemon sharks

Because of the yellowy color of their skin.

So they could be on the bottom, camouflaged on the sand.

And it's perfect for getting your foot bit.

The ability that sharks have just to still be here --

They've had to survive and how they've had to adjust.

In this world, adaptability is a superpower.

Ho: Sharks have existed for at least 450 million years

Because of their ability to avoid danger.

"uh-oh, there's something that threatens my survival

And I need to do whatever I have to do to survive."

They're known to avoid things that present a threat to sharks,

Including humans.

Smith: So by the time I'm on that boat and now

I'm about to dive with the sharks,

I'm back to a good, solid 9.3 of terror.

Oh, man, I legitimately do not feel good about this,

But I'm an action hero and a movie star.

This is the action hero scared face.

-Next stop: Tiger beach. -Yeah.

Smith: Captain's log.

We're headed to tiger beach.

Weather started getting rough.

Put up the mast! To the stern!

Hoist the -- the bow!

To the -- to the stern!

-Looking good, captain. -Yeah, yeah, yeah!

I got it, I got it!

I used to do this all the time in philly!

Man: Welcome to tiger beach.

Whoa, that's no good.

Man: See them? So those are your lemons I told you about.

Smith: That's the little ones? Man: Those are little ones.

Smith: That's no good.

So, this was my idea.

But now we're here,

And I'm just feeling a little different about it.

That's what's going on behind the boat.

And that's what we're about to dive through.

Smith: We are in the bahamas now.

I'm going to get in the water and swim with sharks.

Man: Welcome to tiger beach.

Whoa, that's no good.

That's what's going on behind the boat,

And that's what we're about to dive through.

The way my mind works, I'm always thinking of,

Like, what would happen if this was a movie.

♪♪

And then scoty asks the tragic question.

Alright, so this is probably not a good question.

Has there ever been any incident while doing this?

Like, in all candor, like --

I'm not going to listen to you talk.

Why would you say it?

Now we're like a few minutes away from going down,

And I'm just taking in the scenery.

I'm looking at the cast of characters

That I've chosen to do this with.

And I think, "oh, my god, I've made a horrible mistake."

I hate being scared. I hate it.

My whole childhood was just marked

By debilitating fear, man.

It's like you can't be scared.

You can't be happy if you're scared.

I just don't want to be scared of anything.

How you get over it is you confront the fear.

You know, you don't want to do it in dumb ways.

We got some of the foremost experts in the world here

To help us develop the knowledge to not die today.

♪♪

Fear is a whole brain, whole body responds,

One of the things that fear does

Is that it spikes the adrenaline glands to start going.

That gets you into the fight or flight response.

It starts to secrete adrenaline.

Fear gives you, like,

All of the side effects of a bad pharmaceutical drug.

It's like diarrhea, sore throat, headache, blurry vision.

[ laughs ]

You have all that stuff that they say real fast

At the end of the commercial.

Announcer: Please talk to your doctor about whether fear is right for you.

Ho: When you're afraid, your body starts to amp up.

It's getting ready to start up the fight or flight response

So that you can survive.

It starts to divert your brain's

Activity farther away from the frontal lobe,

Which is what makes us uniquely human.

It gets into the primal, deeper parts of your brain

Where it's all about surviving fear,

Taking care of what's in front of you

And not focusing on anything else.

It starts to divert blood to your big muscles

So you can run away or fight

Or do whatever it is that you need to do.

And the heart rate increases, blood pressure increases.

All of those things happen because it's trying to propel

Your body to be ready for any kind of action possible.

That has to happen on a split moment's notice

Because sometimes

That's the difference between survival and death.

Romeiro: This is our boat right here.

I'm going to be positioned against a bait box right here.

This bait is traveling out there with the scent.

Sharks are coming in this way.

There are a few different

Species of sharks we're going to deal with.

We're going to see reef sharks, lemon sharks,

Possibly nurse, possibly bull.

And our goal, the tiger shark.

Tiger shark is the largest predatory shark in this area

Besides the great white only second to that.

It's a very, very large shark.

So I'm going to be positioned against the bait box right here.

This is where I have aaron and scoty,

But I have you guys more on a straight movement.

You can refer to us as shark bait one

And shark bait two over here, if you'd like.

There are special places to touch them on their face

Because they will come up to you and they will look right at you

And ask you if you're the one with the food.

And at that moment, you're going to put your hand on its head

And you're going to push its head down

And move its energy away from you.

So you come in and somebody like, yo, yo, yo, yo, my dawg.

Exactly. Exactly.

[ growls ]

[ laughter ]

See, what about that?

That's getting into it.

Smith: So the sharks will come in

And we will be allowed to touch them.

What are our signals that you're like touch or don't touch?

There will be nobody stopping you.

But for you to say tiger, what is it -- like --

Stripes? [ laughs ]

That's tiger. He'll go...

[ growls ]

I'll do that.

Scoty, scoty. [ growls ]

♪♪

Romeiro: Everybody always talks about those spirit animals,

Those wolves, those sharks.

This is it, man. You're going to get down there

And there's nothing -- that connection.

Nietzsche said you understand what you confront,

And you guys are about to do that.

Smith: That's when I realized that that's what I was there for.

I was there to overcome those psychological

And physiological reactions.

I stopped trying to run away from it

And I wanted to look at it and sit there and be with it.

In my mind, I was in a cage.

I wasn't, like, diving free, wide open with the sharks.

But...

W.T.F.

♪♪

My heart is pounding out of my chest.

I just can't settle it down.

I just settle.

It was like if it's today, it's today.

Smith: That's when I realized that that's what I was there for.

I was there to overcome those psychological

And physiological reactions.

I stopped trying to run away from it

And I wanted to look at it and sit there and be with it.

In my mind, I was in a cage.

I wasn't like diving free, wide open with the sharks.

But...

W.T.F.

♪♪

I'm on that boat and now I'm about to dive with the sharks.

I don't want to do it.

You know, 10 minutes before, I don't want to do it.

There is a great speech in "after earth."

Fear is not real.

It is a product of our imagination...

♪♪

...Causing us to suffer things that do not at present

And may not ever exist.

♪♪

♪♪

Don't get me wrong.

Danger is very real.

♪♪

But fear is a choice.

♪♪

♪♪

The shark swims up.

And paul just puts his hand out

On the nose of the shark and shoves it away.

And I was like... [ gasps ]

"he's a super hero!"

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Nothing in life will ever feel like that.

[ laughs ]

Dude.

How good was that? Yo.

[ laughs ]

These ain't [bleep].

[ laughter ]

There was will smith before the sharks

And there was will smith after the sharks.

I'm gonna get some of them for the pool at the house.

[ laughs ]

[ laughter ]

Yeah.

They kept sneaking up behind us.

Hey, man, listen, listen.

You guys did great.

She just swims at you.

You got to be like, "yo, get out my face."

[ laughter ]

And you did. Yeah.

And you did. At one point, I saw you.

You pushed the shark up over you,

And you're like, "forget about it."

That is magnificent.

You just put your hand on and you just shove them away.

Aaron: Even being in there,

I know even more you don't [bleep] with sharks.

How was it, scoty?

[ laughter ]

Scoty: Oh, man.

It's a fear, but the fear kind of calms you.

It's -- it makes you still.

Then you see the majestic beauty of these things.

How calm they approach too, but it's with a respect.

Smith: One of the main lessons for me and the reason

That you push the envelope

Is because the rest of life gets more enjoyable.

Every time you gain that knowledge, you dispel that fear.

Yeah, you dispel it. You move it out.

Smith: How I felt about the shark, all that terror

And all of that fear and all of that energy I was bringing,

Dude was just coming to see what's going on down here.

"what y'all doing down here?"

Conquering the worst monster that exists in life --

It's always you.

Your mind is the worst monster you'll ever have to fight.

Now, I'm looking at these, and they're beautiful.

We wanted you to fall in love.

Yeah. Do you think you did?

I mean, we'll go on a date again.

We'll definitely date again.

[ laughter ]

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