While he might not be okay with people making jokes at his family’s expense, Will Smith is always willing to make fun of himself, and not everyone agrees with that.
Source: Variety / Getty
The Philly native is back on the big screen for Bad Boys: Ride or Die, the fourth installment of his buddy cop action comedy film alongside Martin Lawrence. At the end of the movie, the duo seemingly reference Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars, with Martin’s character slapping Will multiple times.
In a recent interview with Variety, the film’s directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah revealed that the scene was actually improvised by the actors.
“Will is coming with this idea; he made this movie really personal,” Fallah told the outlet. “Will was really engaged from the first second that we started pre-production until the last day of the edit. When we were shooting that moment, the sun was going down and we were like, ‘We didn’t finish the scene,’ so that was really almost a freestyle moment.”
When Variety asked if there was a slap on the page that turned into four or five, Fallah responded: “No, that was not on the page. That was in the moment.”
El Arbi added, “That was on the spot. We just said, like, ‘Yeah, Martin, just go ahead. More, more.’”
While the directing duo clearly loved the improvisation, it seems like Chris Rock isn’t so happy with the situation making the rounds again. A source close to the actor spoke to In Touch, telling the mag that the comedian thinks including the slap in Bad Boys 4 is “a pretty cheap stunt.”
“Chris thinks it’s a pretty cheap stunt and he’s telling people how lame he finds it,” the insider reportedly told the outlet. “It’s a classic case of Will making light of a horrific situation. Will’s playing the victim. It was the lowest point of his career, but that’s no excuse.”
The source goes on to say that Rock has purposefully kept a “low profile” since the slap and he “finds Will’s attention-seeking nauseating.”
“It aggravates him that people keep bringing it up,” they went on to explain. “He suffered as much as Will has and now Will has turned it into a funny scene in his movie. As far as Chris is concerned, it’s more proof that Will’s a total piece of work who deserves all the crap he’s gotten. Chris isn’t going to let it go. If there’s a way to get back at Will down the line, he’ll take it.”