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It’s been an interesting year for Will Smith, to say the least.
After tarnishing what should’ve been a career highlight of winning an Academy Award by slapping host Chris Rock across the face, the 54-year-old has largely laid low since.
Given that both life and Smith’s career must move on, however, the Oscar winner has slowly but surely been working his way back into the spotlight, especially in recent months given the release of his new AppleTV+ film Emancipation (which was largely panned by critics and audiences alike — when’s the last time Antoine Fuqua made a good movie?).
His latest baby step back into the pop cultural consciousness, though, seems to be a joke about what put him in this current situation in the first place, via Entertainment Weekly:
In a TikTok duet video, Smith listens intently as user Sam Rossi a.k.a. Miss Money Working, discusses the benefits of asking an inanimate object, any inanimate object, what it thinks of you. According to a caption by Rossi, “This works because everything has consciousness.”
“You can pick up a pen and ask it how it sees you or what it thinks of you,” she says. “And you will get an answer in your mind from your intuition. You can ask your car what it thinks of you, you can even ask money what it thinks of you.”
Smith reaches off-camera and picks up his Best Actor Oscar for King Richard and begins to say something when the video ends.
While Smith’s reaction could mean many things, it’s important to note that his Oscar win was followed up by a 10-year ban from the ceremony just a few days later.
In addition to his starring role in Emancipation, Smith’s comeback also took another step forward in recent weeks as news broke that he’s set to star in a sequel to his 2007 hit I Am Legend alongside Michael B. Jordan.