Today, in "David Schwimmer would never" news: Director Barry Sonnenfeld has revealed that star Will Smith once shut down filming on Men In Black by unleashing a bit of a Noisy Cricket of his own on the movie's set. Was that too oblique? It's possible that was too oblique: The man farted, where Tommy Lee Jones could smell it. Can you even begin to imagine how that would feel?
Per Vulture, Sonnenfeld was making an appearance on Kelly Ripa's Let's Talk Off-Camera podcast, promoting his new memoir Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time, when he decided to nuke Smith from orbit with this little anecdote. Discussing the scene where Smith and Jones' characters are in their upside-down car in the 1997 blockbuster—which apparently involved the car having to be sealed up, relevant for reasons that are already probably floating into the realm of the obvious—Sonnenfeld says he heard the following conversation come over the production's radios: "Oh, Jesus, so sorry. Tommy, so sorry. Baz, get the ladder.’ And you hear Tommy saying, ‘That’s fine, Will. No worries, Will. Don’t worry, Will.’”
(And can we take a moment, please, to consider the consummate grace of Tommy Lee Jones? We know he has a reputation, vis a vis sanctioning the buffoonery of others—he simply will not do it—but what a kindness in a moment of what must have been profound vulnerability on his co-star's part.)
Anyway, said Sonnenfeld, "What happened was, Will Smith is a farter. It’s just some people are, and you really don’t want to be inside a very small hermetically sealed space with a Will Smith fart. You don’t even want to be sitting next to him at the Disney ranch.” This next part sounds wild, but Sonnenfeld then asserted that the stage had to be "evacuated" for three hours before filming could resume, which seems aggressive in a world where small fans exist. And, look: The history of the fart story on Hollywood sets is a long and storied one; you can go down a real rabbit hole on those tales, although we'd recommend bringing an external oxygen supply if you do. But they're normally told by the subjects themselves, often as a humanizing detail with co-stars, and not in a bout of character assassination nearly two decades later. Anyway, there you have it: The story of the most distressing and attention-grabbing thing Will Smith has ever done in Hollywood; no other events need apply.
