Will Smith Hopes New Movie Isn’t Penalized For Oscars Slap

While promoting his upcoming film Emancipation, Will Smith is quickly addressing the elephant in the room: the Oscars slap.

Emancipation is Smith’s first major appearance since the 2022 Oscars, where he slapped Chris Rock in the face on stage after the presenter made a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. On Emancipation’s press tour, Smith is addressing the fans who may not be ready to support his work following the infamous Oscars slap.

“I completely understand that if someone is not ready, I would absolutely respect that and allow them their space to not be ready,” Smith told journalist Kevin McCarthy. “My deepest concern is my team… My deepest hope is that my actions don’t penalize my team. At this point, that’s what I’m working for.”

Emancipation is an upcoming film based on a true story. Smith plays a runaway slave named Peter who escapes a Lousiana plantation. Peter makes his way north to join the Union Army in the United States’ Civil War. The movie is coming to select cinemas on December 2, before its release on Apple TV+ on December 9. Emancipation is directed by Antoine Fuqua, and Smith called it “the greatest work of [Fuqua’s] entire career.”

Following the slap, Smith resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. He was then banned from the Oscars and other Academy events for the next decade. The Academy did not strip Smith of any of his awards, including the Best Actor Oscar he won just minutes after the slap occurred. Months later, Smith publicly apologized for the slap, saying “no part of me that thinks that was the right way to behave in that moment.”

Thumbnail Image Credit: Robyn Beck

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.