It was THE scandal at this year’s Oscars: After Chris Rock made a bald joke about Will Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith, who suffers from hair loss caused by a disease (alopecia), the actor took the stage and gave the comedian a resounding slap in the face. Following this, Smith won his first-ever Oscar for Best Actor in the film King Richard. Now the 54-year-old has released a new film and is again giving interviews as part of his promotional tour for the film “Emancipation”. In it, the actor also has to put up with questions about the slap scandal.
“I don’t have any independent recollection of it,” he first quipped Monday night on The Daily Show, where he was a guest on Trevor Noah, before seriously adding, “It was a horrible night.” There were many nuances and complexities, but on At the end of the day he would have “just lost his mind,” he admitted. “I would say you never know what someone is going through,” he addressed the audience. “They’re sitting next to strangers right now, one of them is last week Mom died, someone’s child is sick, someone lost their job, someone just found out their spouse is cheating. You just don’t know what’s on people’s minds. And I went through something that night too,” he tried to explain his behavior. “Not that that justifies my behavior, but if you ask what I’ve learned, it’s that we just have to be nice to each other.” The most painful thing for him is that he made it difficult for other people.
He also attributed part of his reaction to his childhood, saying: “It was a lot. It was the little boy who saw his father beating his mother. All of that just gushed out at that moment.” I can’t be.” He understands how shocking it must have been for people. He himself was totally “gone”. “It was an anger that was in the bottle for a really long time.” His nine-year-old nephew is in Stayed up that night and later sat with him in the kitchen on his lap – Oscar in hand – and asked, “Why did you hit that man, Uncle Will?” Will Smith cried at that moment when When he told the story: “It was bad”, but he didn’t want to go into too much detail and give people even more cause for misunderstanding.
But what really pisses him off is the idea that director Antoine Fuqua could reject the film because of him. “It’s Antoine’s absolute masterpiece and the whole team did the best work of their lives,” said the actor. “It kills me. (…) I hope that their work is recognized and not dragged into the dirt because of a terrible decision on my part.”
He previously voiced those concerns in an interview with Fox 5 when reporter Kevin McCarthy asked what he would say to people who weren’t ready to see one of his films. “I totally understand that. And I would absolutely respect that and give someone their space if they aren’t ready,” Smith told McCarthy. “My biggest concern is for my team. Antoine has done what I think is the best job of his entire career (…). And my biggest hope is that my actions don’t punish my team.”
In the film “Emancipation,” Smith plays a man who escapes slavery and heads north to join the Union Army. The film was inspired by real-life slave Gordon, aka “Whipped Peter,” whose whip-scarred back was captured in medical exam photos and used by the abolitionist movement to point out the horrors of slavery. The film opens in some US theaters on December 2nd and will be released worldwide on December 9th on Apple TV.
If Smith is nominated for the film, he will not be able to attend the awards ceremony as he has been banned from attending all Oscar events for ten years.
Watch the video: Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars. Passers-by on the street evaluate the actor’s behavior differently.
Sources: “The Daily Show”, Interview with Fox 5
