Will Smith Makes First-Ever Stage Appearance Since Slapping Chris Rock On The Oscar Stage
On Wednesday, March 1, Will Smith made his first-ever stage appearance at the African-American Film Critics Association Awards since the controversial event where he slapped Oscar presenter Chris Rock.
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star was there to accept the Beacon Award for his masterful acting in Antoine Fuqua’s Emancipation — a film about slavery in the United States. During his acceptance speech, he talked about his experiences shooting the movie and the complexities of being an actor.
“Emancipation was the most individual difficult film of my entire career. It was all outdoors, that is true,” he tells the audience. He moves on to chronicle a bit of his shooting experience, saying, “I remember it was the second day of shooting, and it’s really difficult to transport a modern mind to that to that time period. It’s difficult to imagine that level of inhumanity.”
He continues, “I remember it was like 110 degrees, we’re out there, and I’m in a scene with one of the white actors. We had our line, and the actor decide to ad-lib. So, we’re doing the scene, and I did my line, and he did his line and then ad-libbed…spitting in the middle of my chest. If I had pearls on, I definitely would have clutched them.”
Smith then indicated that he wanted to call out to Fuqua, the director, but he stopped.
The Hollywood star gave the audience a brief account of his ordeal while shooting, while explaining to other Black artists in the room that there are people who really “suffer for the art to bring these stories to the screen and deliver them in a way that has emotional impact for the telling of our stories and hopefully just a subtle possibility to change a heart, or to change a mind.”
The film Emancipation based on slavery in the United States was released in the U.S in December 2022, and will be airing on Apple TV in the coming months. What surprises most of the Bad Boys star’s fans is the dramatic physical change the actor underwent to “deliver this film.”
The stage appearance is coming almost a year after slapping comedian presenter Chris Rock at the Oscar’s gala stage over a bad joke about Jada Pinkett Smith. In fact, Chris Rock has a Netflix special that will address the Oscar slap titled Chris Rock: Selective Outrage, streaming live on Netflix on March 4.
Will was banned from attending the Oscars till further notice, and lost out on some projects due to the Oscar controversy. However, in December, the producer of the Bad Boy franchise, Jerry Bruckheimer, noted that Bad Boys 4 is coming and the Oscar controversy will not affect the project.
