As part of National Geographic’s new series, From pole to pole with Will Smith, Richard Parks takes the Academy Award-winning actor through Antarctica. It has been an important journey for the former Wales Rugby Union team player, who was lost in 2009 when he was forced to retire due to a shoulder injury. To fill a gap in competition, he took up climbing and soon set new records. In 2011, Parks completed the 737 Challenge, climbing the highest mountain on seven continents, a feat that saw him stand at both the North and South Poles, as well as what is considered the “third pole,” the summit of Mount Everest.
He completed the task in a record time of six months, eleven days, seven hours and 53 minutes. The following year, Parks became the first Welshman and fastest Briton ever to ski a solo, unsupported route through the South Pole. As a man of color, Parks’ continued achievements have not only broken his own barriers, but inspired people from all backgrounds to push their own boundaries. For “Pole to Pole with Will Smith,” however, Parks would have to go through the process of becoming a tour guide. During this experience he learned a lot about his new famous friend, and about himself.
What did Richard Parks learn about Will Smith in Antarctica?
During Episode 1 of a series in which Smith takes on a variety of extreme challenges, Parks served as an expert guide through one of the most treacherous environments on Earth, helping the icon ski to the South Pole, master ice climbing and master survival skills. However, the former rugby star took on this dangerous journey with complete confidence in his less experienced client.
“I just don’t think you can achieve mastery of the craft the way Will did, for the length of time Will did, without having steel,” Parks explains. “And performance is performance, whether it’s on a rugby field, whether it’s in Antarctica, whether it’s in Hollywood productions. So no, I had no doubts that he would stop. I had doubts about the continent in the sense that Antarctica is unforgiving. In these remote wilderness environments you are subservient to Mother Nature and there are things you can control, but a lot of them are out of your control.”
As Parks got to know Smith better, he became even more impressed. “Very quickly I was inspired by how courageous Will was to be vulnerable,” he says. “What I mean by that is, when you get into an opposing position, your fight or flight responses kick in. That prefrontal cortex shuts down, and Antarctica does that. When you get off the plane, you’re hit with minus 30 degrees, it’s whiteness as far as you can see. The wind is scraping your face like sandpaper. And your whole being is saying, ‘S**t, get me out of here.’ Even physiologically, your heart rate increases, but your blood capillaries can constrict, diverting all your blood to your survival organs. But through the courage to be vulnerable and his sense of joy, he manages to bypass the fear mechanism. And it’s incredible, because once that adversity situation doesn’t trigger a fear response, you allow the prefrontal cortex to remain open, allowing you to think more fluidly or be more creative in problem solving. And what actually starts as a situation of threat now becomes a situation of growth. Maybe we see it on the field with great athletes and sports people, but to actually see that through Will in Antarctica was really inspiring.
What Richard Parks learned about himself in Pole to Pole
Despite his expertise with environments like Antarctica, Parks tells M&F that guiding at this level was a relatively new experience. “This was my opportunity,” he says about realizing his own growth. “But what’s not new to me is teaching, is coaching, and provoking or trying, or at least understanding the process of getting the best out of someone. And actually that’s something I really enjoy: seeing other people fly, whether that’s on the rugby field with the juniors or in a corporate boardroom. On this occasion it was with Will in Antarctica and I’m very grateful for that opportunity. But very soon after meeting Will it became clear that he was. I think that the environment has done that in some way, because Antarctica, or just extreme environments, have a way of stripping away some of the psychological and social layers that we create our identity with, and that we create our lives around, we have to work together to get through this.”
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Pole to Pole with Will Smith is now available at National Geographic, Disney+ and Hulu.
See below to watch the official trailer.
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