Photo: Getty Images
Will Smith realizes that some people might not be ready for his return to film due to his actions at the Oscars earlier this year.
Will is doing press for his upcoming movie “Emancipation” and he addressed his slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars earlier this year.
He said, “I completely understand — if someone is not ready, I would absolutely respect that and allow them their space to not be ready.”
When asked what he would say to people skeptical of his comeback, Will said, “My deepest concern is my team – Antoine has done what I think is the greatest work of his entire career. The people on this team have done some of the best work of their entire careers, and my deepest hope is that my actions don’t penalize my team. At this point, that’s what I’m working for.”
He added, “I’m hoping that the material — the power of the film, the timeliness of the story — I’m hoping that the good that can be done would open people’s hearts at a minimum to see and recognize and support the incredible artists in and around this film.”
In related Dirty:
Will Smith said he “just lost it” when he slapped comedian Chris Rock.
Smith appeared on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” and said, “I was gone. That was a rage that had been bottled for a really long time."
Smith told Noah he was “going through something” and lost his cool that night.
“That was a horrific night as you can imagine. There’s many nuances and complexities to it, you know, but at the end of the day, I just — I lost it and I guess what I would say [is] you just never know what somebody’s going through.”
Smith didn’t identify what troubles he was dealing with during the awards ceremony — but said a lot of things he had been feeling came to a head all at once.
None of it justified his actions.
“It was a lot of things. It was the little boy that watched his father beat up his mother. It’s, you know, all of that just bubbled up in in that moment. That’s not who I want to be.”
Source: NY Post, "The Daily Show".
Photo Credit: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images.