Will Smith has spoken about how he was caught off guard when his co-star went off-script and spat on him while filming his upcoming movie Emancipation.
The 54-year-old actor has largely shied away from the spotlight following his now-infamous viral Oscars incident - which saw him storm on stage and slap comedian Chris Rock in the face after he made a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. It was that incident that saw the Oscar winner banned from attending the prestigious awards ceremony for 10 years.
Despite the controversy, however, Smith has powered through and has been on the promotional trail for his latest project, which hit Apple TV earlier this month. The I Am Legend actor appeared on Pinkett Smith's Facebook show, Red Table Talk, where he discussed the flick with his three children - Trey, Jaden, and Willow.
Smith appears in the movie as an enslaved man in 1860s Louisiana, who flees a plantation shortly after being viciously whipped by the plantation's overseer. The gritty drama follows Smith's character's journey to freedom and is loosely based upon the real-life story of Gordon, an African-American slave whose back was heavily scarred from being whipped by his enslavers.
Images of his scarred back went the equivalent of "viral" in 1863 after they were used by abolitionists to prove the cruelty of America's slave trade.
Smith described how intense the role became, telling his children: "It's just the weight of this story, the weight of these experiences, the quality of the actors. It was emotionally, it was physically, it was spiritually taxing."
He revealed that one scene in the flick had him rather shocked, saying: "One of the first days on set, there was a scene with one of the actors. And then he leans down to my face and says, 'You're a cold one, ain't you?'", before adding that his co-star chose to "ad-lib," and spit on him.
The former musician re-enacted his reaction at the Red Table, saying: "I was like, 'Makeuuuup!' No, but it was like... Whoa, every actor on this set was taking it really, really seriously."
The movie - which also stars Ben Foster and Charmaine Bingwa - has so far received a critics' score of 45% on Rotten Tomatoes, and an audience score of 88%.
CNN said of the flick: "There's a pronounced Hollywood-ized feel to the finished product, one that doesn't compare favorably with other projects that have covered similar territory."
While ABC News Australia commented: "This lean and lurid genre mode is where Emancipation works best, with Smith growling and grimacing through an unpretentious chase movie that allows his considerable presence to hold an audience in thrall without saying much."
Emancipation is available now to watch on AppleTV+.