NEW YORK—Will Smith is a cat who likes to keep it all in the family. He and wife Jada Pinkett Smith along with James Lassiter, his best boy from Philly, are executive producers on the CW sitcom “All of Us.” And, another good friend, Duane Martin, is the show’s star.

“Hey, we’re going to do it like the white people do it,” Smith said three years ago when the show launched on UPN. “They hire all of their friends and so are we.”

That’s the way Big Willie rolls.

So you knew it was going to only be a matter of time before the reigning king of the big opening weekend (“Bad Boys,” “I, Robot,” “Men in Black,” “Independence Day” and “Hitch”) shared the throne with one of his three children—Trey (a product of Smith’s first marriage), Jaden or Willow.

Tag Jaden, you’re it!

Jaden, 8, the eldest of Smith’s two children with Jada, makes his big screen debut alongside his dad in “The Pursuit of Happyness,” a story inspired by the real-life rags-to-riches saga of Chris Gardner and his son, Christopher. Gardner went from being a homeless, single father with a non-paying internship gig at a top brokerage firm in San Francisco, to the owner and CEO of his own investment company. This story not only helped strengthen Smith’s dramatic chops, but brought him closer to his son.

“I’m at such a different place in my life right now that the opportunity to work with Jaden is just the most amazing thing,” Smith, 38, said during a recent interview in his Upper East Side Five-star hotel room. “My son has just developed me to a space where I’m starting to understand and starting to be more comfortable with the idea that the things that you don’t do well are the things that are going to really help people. How you struggle is what really helps people. It’s new for me and I haven’t really figured out how to articulate everything that is in my mind but I’m excited right now about the connection between the things that I believe and now being able to find a way to illustrate those beliefs in my artistry.”

That’s pretty deep.

But this new incarnation of Smith—conservatively dressed in a tweed blazer, atop gray slacks and a matching turtleneck accenting the gray flecks in his nearly bald head, is really just utilizing some of the skills his daddy taught him when he was the Fresh Prince of West Philly with a box fade and sporting those wild Cross Colours threads.

“I’ve always considered myself to be just average talent and what I have is a ridiculous, insane, obsessiveness for practice and preparation,” said Smith, an Oscar nominee in 2002 for his role in ‘Ali.’ “My father used to say all the time that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. So, if you stay ready you don’t have to get ready. And that is how I run my life—just stay ready. Stay in shape and then you don’t have to rush when the movie starts.”

He’s definitely in good form in this one and Jaden is one of the reasons why. Smith credits his son—who did have to audition for the role after director Gabriele Muccino rejected the hundreds of other boys up for the part—with helping him raise his game.

“I was struggling with a scene and Gabriele Muccino would come and give me notes,” Smith said. “Every time Gabriele would give me notes and wouldn’t give any to Jaden, Jaden took that as him winning (laughs)! He would look at me like I got a note and he didn’t.

“So, it was a particularly difficult scene I was struggling with and Jaden said to me, ‘You do the same thing every take Daddy.’ I was a little offended by that but what he was saying was that innately he couldn’t understand how I was reading everything exactly the same way every time. He was feeling like that’s not real. I thought we were supposed to be making this real. And I started watching him and he broke me out of a mechanical space.”

Thandie Newton, who plays the wife who abandons Gardner when he can’t get his life together, was impressed with the depth of the Smiths’ performances.

“It was one of the most challenging roles of Will’s life and he worked extremely hard at obviously finding an understanding for the character, but also finding an understanding for the real-life person. And he had to be the father to Jaden in his first screen role. I don’t know how he managed to do it, but he did and they were both wonderful. It was beautiful to watch.” The work not only made Smith a better actor, it also made him a better dad as well.

“What it taught me—it’s interesting on camera and off with Jaden—is that the bottom line is time,” he said. “The amount of time you spend with your child. If it’s in the bathroom or like Chris Gardner said on ‘Oprah,’ in a million-dollar home, it’s the time. And Jaden and I got to spend every single day, 10-12 hours a day together working on this film.

“It became clear that whatever you have to offer financially doesn’t matter. Whatever situation you’re in, it doesn’t matter. You have to be there. You have to be with your child. To be able to spend that many hours a day together, our bond took off in a way that I never imagined.” Now that Jaden, this month’s Ebony cover boy with his dad, is becoming a household name and presumably the next big thing in the under 12 set in Hollywood, he, like his other siblings still have to put in some time to earn their dimes. He’s a child of privilege, but one with impeccable manners.

After our interview Smith spotted his son sitting on the floor of the hall outside his suite and asked him “did you speak?” while pointing at me. His voice was authoritative, but not stern. Jaden, who was intently focused on his PSP, put it down, looked up, smiled and said “hello” with far more enthusiasm than any other kid his age would after having his game interrupted. It appears that Jaden is one of those kids that the old folks say have “been here before.” That means he’s smart enough to realize from whom his earthly blessings flow and he’s not about to mess up.

“We don’t give them nothing! My daughter asks me all the time—‘Daddy are we rich?’ I say, ‘No baby, you’re broke!’ Daddy works really hard,” Smith said with a straight face. “You don’t even own those clothes. Mommy and Daddy are going to teach you how to create a space that you have the life that you desire, but this is the life that mommy and daddy desired and we worked really hard to create this life for ourselves, but you’re going to have to create one of your own.”

With the raves Jaden is getting for his debut in ‘…Happyness’ and his parents’ commitment to good home training, it looks as though he’s well on his way to being the man his father has become because of him.