Emancipation: Will Smith says co-star Ben Foster didn’t make eye contact with him for six months while filming

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Will Smith discussed the intensity of the six-month shoot for his latest film, the slavery drama Emancipation.

In the film, directed by Antoine Fuqua, Smith plays a slave named Peter who escapes from captivity and goes to fight with Abraham Lincoln’s army during the American Civil War.

Ben Foster plays a slave hunter who relentlessly pursues Smith’s character through the swamps of Louisiana.

Speaking on the latest episode of Red Table Talk, Smith explained how, on the first day of filming, Foster dumped him—an approach Smith had great respect for.

He said, “Ben walked past me and didn’t say anything.” “I was like, ‘Oh, he must not have seen me.'” And after that for six months he didn’t speak to me, didn’t make eye contact with me, didn’t say a word. He didn’t acknowledge me for six months.

“But what he did on the first day, I was like, ‘Yeah, I get it.'” We’re not playing around. This is real. This is serious. We’re not playing around with these ideas. I really do credit Ben for clicking me into the next gear of depth and focus.”

Smith then spoke about how Foster came to the screen on the last day of filming to look at a shot with Smith and Fuqua for the first time. He watches the shot and Antoine says, ‘I’m happy. Smith remembers.

Then I look at Ben, it’s the last day, and he [extends his hand] And he says, “Nice to meet you.”

Will Smith and Ben Foster in “Emancipation”

(Apple TV+)

Through tears of laughter, Smith added, “We went through this whole movie together. And all the time he wasn’t going to his trailer, he was staying in his character’s tent all day and he had all his stuff in his character’s tent.”

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Smith said that months after production wrapped and the two actors got back together to do pressing, he felt he didn’t know Foster. “I was like, ‘Who are you?'” Smith said.

Meanwhile, a clip was shown of Foster, in which he said: “I’m blown away by what Will Smith has done in this movie… We have to think about our past in order to meet our present day and our present day is full of eerie similarities to what happened during this true story.” when that happened.”

Elsewhere in the episode of Red Table Talk, Smith recalls being stuck in chains for 15 minutes while the crew frantically searched for keys, and how one of the Emancipation stars spat on him during an impromptu operation.

Read The Independent’s review of the film here, and find out what Fuqua had to say about working with Smith, and the Oscar smackdown here.

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