January 26, 2023 • 36 mins
For the first time, Will Smith is taking over the Red Table with his three kids to open up about the most grueling and transformative time of his life - making the movie “Emancipation.” In this deeply intimate and revealing Red Table Talk, Will recounts how for the first time in his career he nearly ‘went too far’ and almost ‘lost himself.’ Will shares the biggest revelations of his life, a horrific moment he experienced while filming and a co-star who refused to speak to him. Trey, Jaden and Willow ask their father questions about how he was able to recover from the trauma of playing such an intense character. Plus emotional surprises from director Antoine Fuqua, co-star Ben Foster and Will’s #1 fan in the world: his mom.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, fam I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Red Table Pop podcast, all your favorite episodes from the
Facebook watch show in audio, produced by Westbrook Audio and
I Heart Radio. Please don't forget to rate and review
on Apple Podcasts. We're welcome to the table, my children.
(00:21):
It has been sometimes with welcome all my kids. Y'all,
y'all are my kids? Yes, we're here at the table.
This is a Red Table takeover. So essentially I'm the boss,
all right. I just want to clarify it because y'all
(00:42):
might be looking at Willow because usually yeah, but in
today's episode, she's like my guest. That's yeah's my guest. Alright.
So with this movie, Emancipation was one of the most
grueling and transform pnmitive and ultimately rewarding films of my
(01:04):
entire career. You guys saw the movie I really wanted
to as an actor. When I make things, when I
put things in the world, you guys are my first
round of thought. I'm making things to leave ideas for
my children, and then it extends to other people's children
and then to the world. So I'm excited to be
(01:24):
able to talk about it. So it all started with
this devastating photograph that many say is the first viral image.
The photo quickly spread across the country, shocking millions with
the horrors of slavery and exposing the line that enslaved
people were treated humanely. Peter's portrait inspired many free black
(01:47):
men to enlist in the Union Army. I'll never forget
the first time I saw that picture. It was so
moving in such a just heartbreaking away. And for that
to be like the first like viral image is crazy. Yeah.
So emancipation is the story behind the famous picture. It's
(02:10):
based on the life of a slave named Peter. Give
thanks to God. Do no ities with us. I will
come back to you many meany you walk the earth man,
(02:40):
because the election I'm your God now slaves off we man.
We must get too better Bush through this one Ncoln
Samy East then that many least to die in a swamp.
(03:13):
Jim's persistent running Hiden surviving. I fight him. They beat me,
they whipped me, they break the bulls in my body
more times than I can come to but they never
(03:47):
never bring me. Wow, I have not seen the trailer. Crazy.
There was some deeply moving moments. Yeah, it was rugged.
We had some calls while you were shooting. Yeah, I
(04:08):
was very concerned. Yeah, he was just it was he
can say, you guys been around for most of my career.
It's like, as the years have gone on, I've gotten
more and more locked into these characters for longer periods
(04:28):
of time, and 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.
One of the first days on set, there was a
scene with one of the actors. He leans down in
(04:50):
my face and he says, you're a cold one, ain't you,
And then he ad lived. I was like, right, no,
(05:16):
but it was like I was like whoa. Every actor
on this set was taking it really, really seriously. When
the first teaser came out, as people were like, why
another slave movie, and it's like, this is not a
slave movie, this is a freedom movie. There were some
parts of me when you said you were making a
slave movie that I was like, m M, well, you know,
(05:39):
originally I was considering doing Django. Did you guys know that.
You guys we had a family had about and we
all talked about dang. Yes, yes, yes, I wasn't all
the way in, but one of the main reasons why
I wasn't was the looks on your faces, because you
knew what that would mean, and those characters seep back
(06:03):
into the house. So I invited college students to watch
the movie and to share any questions that it brought
up for them. So first up is Devin, I just
finished watching the film, and honestly, it feels like I
(06:25):
just woke up from a terrible nightmare. My whole body
physically hurt as I was walking out of the movie theater.
That's how powerful the film was. It's one thing to
read about slavery and all these terrible things that happened
in history books, but it's another thing to watch it
right there on the big screen. Well, how did playing
(06:46):
a slave for months on end with people saying horrible
and dehumanizing things to you affect your mindset? And what
did you learn about yourself? Question? One question? I was
getting called the N word, you know, a hundred times
a day by by very good actors, very very good actors.
(07:09):
You know, it's rough. It twists your mind up. You
have to be really careful because you definitely, you definitely
twist your mind up. There's like a magic moment. As
an actor, you look for the best way I can
describe it, it's like you feel the character wash over you.
It'll be wardrobe, it'll be a scene, it'll be the
(07:30):
dialect something. What happened is we were trying on the
neck chains, so where it's you know, six weeks before
we're shooting and they're trying to get the right size
and the right weight. This feels horrendous. It won't be
(07:51):
too much work to find this character putting the chains on.
As an actor, you're always trying to find a thing
that makes you understand the character who won't pursuit of happiness.
Chris Gardner took me to the bathroom and him and
his son had to sleep in and I walked in
the bathroom with him and I was like, got it.
(08:13):
And as soon as those chains went on, I was
like got it. It turns off your agency. You don't
want to step, you don't want to move, you don't
want to look anybody in the face. It's deeply dehumanizing.
M hmmm, yeah, yeah, that just put me back in there.
(08:38):
That put me back in there. Um, yeah, well take
a moment. Sorry, Yeah, that's it. Yeah. So they put
it on and doing so I'm standing there and then
he goes to take it off and it doesn't work,
so it's a locked on and my heart jumps and
(09:02):
I'm like, oh no, oh no, oh no. So I'm
sitting there. Now he's running around looking for the keys,
and for fifteen minutes, I'm stuck there in the chain
and my heart is pounding and I'm like, will do
not freak right, And I'm sitting there and then it's like,
(09:22):
I got it. It's like I'm will Smith with people
running around looking for keys, and my heart is still
pounding and I'm still scared. Imagine what it was like
for Peter to have that stuff on barefoot and nobody cares.
And it was like, whoo, yeah, I got it. Yeah,
(09:45):
that was a powerful moment for you and Claus. Yes,
absolutely really dehumanizing. And I haven't been able to articulate why,
but I felt embarrassed. I was embarrassed while I was
standing there and I was waiting, and it was emasculating, dehumanizing,
all of that, and it was like like got it, Yeah,
(10:06):
got it. Once you experience those things, they go into
the same banks as your actual memories. You don't have
a separate place for acting. Your brain and your body
recognizes it the same way it recognizes actual memories. You
(10:26):
have nightmares about it the same way, and so it's
all of that kind of stuff. But six degrees of
separation was the only other time in my career where
I got lost, where I went too far with with
a character. Um, I wouldn't say I went too far
with Peter. I just lost track of how far I went. Okay,
(10:47):
got it? I got twisted up in there, Um a
little bit. What does that look like for you? Like
losing track of that? You go into a state and
when you go that one click too far, Will Smith disappears.
And then what happens is psychologically you go farther and
farther into Peter and you don't realize that you are
(11:11):
slipping away, and then it's over and you go back
and you look for you and you're gone. It's a
it's a hard thing to explain, right, So what happens
You play these characters, and when you play them long enough,
it's like moving to another country and speaking in another language.
(11:33):
If you speak the other language long enough, you'll start
to lose your native tongue, and you can forget how
you walk your previous personality right, and you know, you
can see when actors get out on that edge, right,
when you you touch that edge of no self. Yeah,
(12:00):
and it's terrifying. It's terrifying out there, Peter is as
far as I've ever been with a character. And you
have to actually train yourself to be able to go
farther and farther and farther. It's it's it's blissful out there,
right to be in a scene and you have that
(12:22):
moment on camera when you forget and you're lost, It's
like it's blissful, except when they say cut and you
reach back for you yeah, right, and you it's a
weird thing. But I got I got out there to
that terrifying, blissful edge. So I wanted to show you guys,
(12:46):
in real life some of the brutal, dehumanizing devices that
were used during slavery. When you're say, in real life,
do you mean right now here? Right? Yes? Oh no, no, no,
no no no, why I just want you have to
know so you have to know, Wow, this is insane.
(13:11):
So that would go around your neck, yes, wow, keeps
you from running. This is like the ones that were
in the movies that had like the bells on them
and stuff. Somebody would run. But like, who even dreams this?
Like that's what I'm figuring right now. To make it
feel the way to that m hmm yeahs oh my gosh.
(13:35):
And just feel the weight of that what it would
do in your neck. Imagine somebody puts that on your neck,
they can take and if you're a way like rape
anybody they want whenever they want. For me, as an actor,
my image was you guys, and imagine and being pulled
away right Just imagine somebody comes in here right now
(13:58):
and beats me and snatches me away, and you guys
don't know if you'll ever see me again. That is
the legacy of slavery in America. It creates generational trauma,
even on a cellular level, you know, scientifically, exactly as
(14:22):
brutal as it is, there's also the other side of
how resilient and powerful that blacks in America. It's incomprehensible. Honestly,
it's incomprehensible. Let's talk a little bit about your physicality
and what you had to go through to get your
body into the place making this movie because Willow kept
(14:44):
noticing in the movie, like he's getting skinnier, He's getting skinny.
You guys may remember I posted out of Shape the
dad Body picture. The Dad Boty picture was my beginning
of preparation to lose weight for Peter. I was probably
to five ish when I started, and at the lowest
(15:08):
on the movie, I got to one. For me, the
physicality is a big part of what makes people go WHOA. Yeah,
you know, to be able to transition and manipulate your
body as an actor is a big part of the
suspension of disbelief for people. And actually being out in
(15:29):
the swamps. Yeah, I'm sure you were just losing weight
just being yeah, just it's it's hot, it's nasty, you're
in the swamp. Your hands are dirty, so you don't
really want to grab food and eat really in it. Yeah,
when I went in there deep, it's insane. What's the
most impactful part of the movie for you? So? So
there was um And I can't even talk about Peter
(15:55):
without being Altieri. So but y'all see me cry all
the time. You'll see me cry all the time. So um,
Peter said in his writings or that probably dictations to somebody,
but the things that exist. Historically, Peter was beaten into
a coma, and in the coma he said, he met God.
(16:20):
And it's right in the middle of the movie. And
he's been running for a few days and there's no
food and no water and out in the swamp and
he's there and he's feeling lost, and he's feeling turned around,
and his hearing is going a little bit, and he
stops and he gets himself together and he goes, oh shock,
(17:15):
and he finds the gratitude to praise God in the
middle of that. It was one of the things that
I wanted to be able to share with you, all
the ideas that I learned from Peter. So the concept
is that nobody gets out of this life without having
(17:36):
to bear their cross. Facts from facts. So you may
not have to bear it to the level that Peter
had to bear it, or to the level that Jesus
had to bear it. But the only way to be
here joyfully is to be grateful for the cross you've
(17:58):
been given to bear. You have to know that suffering
leads to salvation, and the only thing that would make
you not reach the Promised Land is giving up and
Peter knew and trusted God fully that all he had
(18:24):
to do was bear his cross with gratitude. He was
saying thank you God in the middle of that. Peter's
faith throughout the whole movie was something that really stuck
out to me. Peter has absolutely changed my life, you know. So? Um? Yeah,
(18:46):
And I heard a great quote, the only way to
be here is you have to learn how to have
an open heart in hell. Yeah, here's a question from
a theater go or from Los Angeles. What we got.
My name is Stacy Ramsey. I'm twenty three years old
(19:07):
and I went through so many emotions throughout this whole movie,
to be honest, Um, some were sad, so we're happy.
Some felt really familiar because no matter what it is
that you go through, there's so many things, whether it's people, work, family,
that try to break parts of you, and it's so
important just to push through and not let them break you.
(19:28):
I have a question for Will. I just would really
like to know what form of personal suffering did you
tap into to execute this role. Wow, that's a crazy question.
I don't have, thank God, anything in my life comparable
to what Peter experienced. There's a universal suffering that I
(19:51):
think we can all connect on, but I don't know
what I would actually do in the face of that
kind of demid on a malevel to be really faced
with the darkness. I've had moments within myself where I've
had to face things, but like to look into the
(20:13):
eyes of that kind of malevolence, it's either you're enlightened
or you go crazy. Yes, there's Yeah, there's a term
Plato used that puts those together, divine madness. That there's
a certain divine madness that I was trying to depict
(20:35):
from Peter, because when you stop and you pray in
that moment, that is a taste of divine madness. That's
what I learned from Peter. Like the idea of the
darkness being the road to the light. Yeah. Facts. So
(20:58):
one of the most critical moment ments in the movie
for me was the speech that Ben Foster's character gives
story telling the story of his nigger house girl. And
what was so beautiful about Ben's portrayal is he loved her.
(21:18):
And what I love is that you can see his
heart was taught to hate. Yeah, my father, he's a
core Nuskar. My mother passed when I was young, So
(21:41):
the job of raising me, filling her how screw She
took care of me. She feed me, she washed me,
she taught me things. She's my friend. What evening, I
(22:06):
asked my father if she could join us for supper,
and he looked at me in a funny way and said,
then what I said, so we could eat together? To
what she asked? Then what? I didn't know. I was
(22:27):
just a boy, but he did. He said, first they
eat their food, and they'll take her jobs, and then
they'll steal our land. Well, you give them so much
as a crumb, they're going to take over the whole
damn country. Wow, that's crazy. And then he goes on
(22:52):
to tell the story and how he watched her die
for three days. His father taught him hate and through trauma.
It's like, I just couldn't imagine seeing someone you love
so much in the field dying for three days and
you can't do anything like that on a child's mind. Blunt, absolutely, Yeah.
(23:18):
Ben Foster is phenomenal in Emancipation. I hear he sent
the Red Table a message, and I haven't seen it yet.
Ben is the total opposite of his character. The first
day of set was staggering two hundred plus background actors
(23:40):
portraying the enslaved. I was walking past men in chains
and in situations of such tremendous violence, and then I
felt him. I didn't see him, I felt him. It
was Will on set, but it doesn't Will Smith as
(24:01):
we know him. It was a man, and that man
was vibrating. It's animal stuff. It's hard to explain, but
I could feel the presence of this man who is
digging deep. And I passed him and I felt, well,
I'm going to give him his space. We didn't speak
(24:22):
for six months of shooting. What I saw with Will
is an actor whom I've respected for for so very long.
I think does some of the most important work, not
just of his career, but of current day cinema. This
is a performance that speaks to the human spirit, against
all odds, to fight for love, the fight of faith,
(24:44):
the fight to endure and endure for love. I'm blown
away by what Will Smith did in this film. What
I hope people take away from this film is the
worst thing that we could do is not raise our hand,
is not to have an open dialogue. We must reflect
on our past and ordered to meet our current day,
and our current day is rife with frightening similarities of
(25:07):
what happened during this true story. When it took place,
I happened to believe babies are not born with hate
in their heart, that hate has learned, that hate can
be unlearned, and compassion can fill that void. Heal that virus,
and we can remind each other of our similarities or
commonalities with empathy. We don't have to get each other holy,
(25:31):
but we must recognize that we're all flesh and blood.
We're not here for long. Let's leave with kindness. Wow. Wow,
that's crazy. That was beautiful. That's great that he felt you,
he felt your presence. So my side of that, that's
(25:57):
my first time here in his side. Right. So we
were having delays. I think we didn't even get a
shot the first day. There was lightning and there was heat,
and we had literally lost an entire day. So I'm
doing my you know, thinking and the extras. Hey, thank
you all very much, everybody, blah blah blah. In my mind,
I was giving my best will Smith and Ben just
(26:21):
walked past me and didn't say nothing. I was like, oh,
he must he must not have seen me. And then
for six months. He didn't speak to me, he didn't
make eye contact with me, he didn't say a word,
(26:43):
he didn't acknowledge me for six months. But what he
did that first day, I was like, yep, got it.
We're not playing this is real, this is serious. We're
not fooling around with these ideas. And I really credit
then for clicking me into the next gear of depth
(27:08):
and focus. So the final day, me and Antoine or
at the monitor looking at the shot, and then comes over.
He never came to the monitor ever, he's there. He
comes to the monitor, he watches the shot and Antoine said,
I'm happy we got it, and then I look over it.
(27:31):
Then this is last day. He says nice to me,
like yeah, because it was like because you know we've
(27:52):
been we have been through that whole movie together. That
is crazy. Did you guys talk at all after that?
When you he left, he flew out, he went home.
It was his last shot day because he went from
he wanted to like, yeah, he wanted to make sure
(28:15):
I can officially stop and on his character, Ben set
the tone for everybody right, and he wasn't going to
his trailer. He was staying in his tent on the
set like although like his actor, like his character tent.
He had all of his stuff in his character Tent. Well,
(28:35):
you taught me this. Great great actors make everybody else's
job easier. If you're great at anything, you make it easier.
So that was it. You guys didn't talk anymore. No,
not till a few months after that. Yeah, that we
we came back together for suppress or something like that.
(28:56):
I was like, who are you? Who are you? You
kind soldier? Oh man, that's crazy. So the brilliant director
of Emancipation, Antoine Fuqua, wanted to say this, Hey, Will
and Red Table Talk, here's a few thoughts about Emancipation.
(29:17):
I thought I would share with you. When people go
to see this film, I'm hoping they'll be inspired and
experienced the love story and see a film about freedom
and faith and family as well as a story about
strength and perseverance. The story of Peter is incredible, a
man that was a slave but was free in his
(29:40):
mind and his heart and his spirit. Antoine is no joke.
This is what it's about. I respect that Antoine is
a is a beast man. He created something I think
is a real master. Yeah, it really is. The DP.
(30:02):
Bob Richardson put his thing down with this movie. The
cinematography is insane and I've never seen any movie that
just visually looks the way that this one does. One
of the things that Antoine said that was great about
that texture, the tone. He said he wanted to drain
the color out of the Confederacy, right for that not
(30:27):
to be glorified. There's a great shot with uh Peter
firing a gun at one of the last moments in
the battle with the American flag gone by. And the
story is that we fought for this country, right, We
(30:47):
fought and earned our position in this country. We don't
have to feel like outsiders here. This is this is
our home, right you very said of that, And the
thing is like, no, no, no, it's not America, no no, no,
no no. We are America, like own it and not
(31:09):
ownership in a way that is ours and not other people's,
like it's all of ours. We are a part of
the fiber of this place. The ownership has to be
in our minds in the same way the emancipation has
to be in our minds. Like Peter was enslaved, but
(31:33):
he was never a slave, but he was free. He
was free when I was growing up, you know, because
Daddy O was in the Air Force. Oh damn. Yeah.
So Daddy O raised me like American. He raised me
with the idea if somebody said go back to Africa, Nope,
(31:54):
you go back to wherever your people came from. I'm here,
you go back, right. I have this conversation with people
a lot of the times where they're like, this thing
that you're talking about is so dark, or this thing
that you know are shining light on is so terrible.
But it's like, we can never forget about the history
of the reality because if you don't know that those
types of things are possible and people can do that
(32:16):
to people, then you know you're gonna you have to
move throughout the world knowing history, you know, like those
who don't know their history or yeah, doomed to repeat it.
There's another one I really love. The one thing we
learned from history is that we don't learn anything from history. Yeah,
you do it all over again. Yeah exactly, you do
(32:37):
it all over again, and I'm hoping that it won't
be the case. Yeah. It was really critical for me,
for for you guys and really your generation to see
this movie and to understand the foundations of this story
and what it means in this country. You guys were
(32:59):
born with black president. I remember when Barack Obama got elected,
you and we were crying, and you guys couldn't be
like we knew he was gonna win. It was like
you guys grew up in at a largely different era.
So to me, it's really important when you know where
you've been. It helps you get a better sense of
where you're going or even why certain things are the
(33:21):
way that they are. Right before, we have a message
from your biggest fan, a message from my biggest fan.
Who is it? Hey, baby, this is your mama, and
I just want to tell you what a wonderful movie
in Emancipation is. I just couldn't believe a little wonderful
(33:44):
job that you performed because Peter just came right through
and I looked and looked, and I knew was, oh,
that is my child. But Peter just exuded through you,
and I just you just left yourself, just became Peter.
When Peter was in the swamp, and it's there and
(34:05):
it seems like forever in that water, and I wish
I could have just gone in and just got me out. Well,
I know how much hard work and dedication you put
into making this movie come to life. I can't wait
for the world to see it and learned from it.
I'm going to tell everyone that I knew that they
(34:27):
definitely need to go. I love you so much, and
I'm so proud of you and Trey Jaden and Willow.
Mom loves you so much, proper. I'm so glad that
we were able to have this conversation. I felt like
(34:47):
I learned so much in that the entire youth that
is going to learn so much. Emancipation is streaming now
on appletus class be ready. It's a red table ache
over with my kids, Willow, Jaden, Trey. I'm the boss,
I'm in charge, and we're talking about making a movie
(35:09):
it pans it pants. We're talking about the most grueling
and transformative No, no, no, it's it's Willow. It's not
because you guys are playing behind me. You're playing with her.
Ad Livin is how we got this house, alright. Me
(35:30):
A Lincoln is the only reason are here kept having
sex because I was a Livin. Come on, kids, we
got you. Guys are being so immature making the movie emancipation.
Tap now to watch. Check us out yes Yes, I'm
good at this. To join the red table Talk family
(35:53):
and become a part of the conversation. Follow us at
facebook dot com slash red table talk. Thanks for listening
to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast produced by Facebook, Watch,
Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.
Hey, fam I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Red Table Pop podcast, all your favorite episodes from the
Facebook watch show in audio, produced by Westbrook Audio and
I Heart Radio. Please don't forget to rate and review
on Apple Podcasts. We're welcome to the table, my children.
(00:21):
It has been sometimes with welcome all my kids. Y'all,
y'all are my kids? Yes, we're here at the table.
This is a Red Table takeover. So essentially I'm the boss,
all right. I just want to clarify it because y'all
(00:42):
might be looking at Willow because usually yeah, but in
today's episode, she's like my guest. That's yeah's my guest. Alright.
So with this movie, Emancipation was one of the most
grueling and transform pnmitive and ultimately rewarding films of my
(01:04):
entire career. You guys saw the movie I really wanted
to as an actor. When I make things, when I
put things in the world, you guys are my first
round of thought. I'm making things to leave ideas for
my children, and then it extends to other people's children
and then to the world. So I'm excited to be
(01:24):
able to talk about it. So it all started with
this devastating photograph that many say is the first viral image.
The photo quickly spread across the country, shocking millions with
the horrors of slavery and exposing the line that enslaved
people were treated humanely. Peter's portrait inspired many free black
(01:47):
men to enlist in the Union Army. I'll never forget
the first time I saw that picture. It was so
moving in such a just heartbreaking away. And for that
to be like the first like viral image is crazy. Yeah.
So emancipation is the story behind the famous picture. It's
(02:10):
based on the life of a slave named Peter. Give
thanks to God. Do no ities with us. I will
come back to you many meany you walk the earth man,
(02:40):
because the election I'm your God now slaves off we man.
We must get too better Bush through this one Ncoln
Samy East then that many least to die in a swamp.
(03:13):
Jim's persistent running Hiden surviving. I fight him. They beat me,
they whipped me, they break the bulls in my body
more times than I can come to but they never
(03:47):
never bring me. Wow, I have not seen the trailer. Crazy.
There was some deeply moving moments. Yeah, it was rugged.
We had some calls while you were shooting. Yeah, I
(04:08):
was very concerned. Yeah, he was just it was he
can say, you guys been around for most of my career.
It's like, as the years have gone on, I've gotten
more and more locked into these characters for longer periods
(04:28):
of time, and 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.
One of the first days on set, there was a
scene with one of the actors. He leans down in
(04:50):
my face and he says, you're a cold one, ain't you,
And then he ad lived. I was like, right, no,
(05:16):
but it was like I was like whoa. Every actor
on this set was taking it really, really seriously. When
the first teaser came out, as people were like, why
another slave movie, and it's like, this is not a
slave movie, this is a freedom movie. There were some
parts of me when you said you were making a
slave movie that I was like, m M, well, you know,
(05:39):
originally I was considering doing Django. Did you guys know that.
You guys we had a family had about and we
all talked about dang. Yes, yes, yes, I wasn't all
the way in, but one of the main reasons why
I wasn't was the looks on your faces, because you
knew what that would mean, and those characters seep back
(06:03):
into the house. So I invited college students to watch
the movie and to share any questions that it brought
up for them. So first up is Devin, I just
finished watching the film, and honestly, it feels like I
(06:25):
just woke up from a terrible nightmare. My whole body
physically hurt as I was walking out of the movie theater.
That's how powerful the film was. It's one thing to
read about slavery and all these terrible things that happened
in history books, but it's another thing to watch it
right there on the big screen. Well, how did playing
(06:46):
a slave for months on end with people saying horrible
and dehumanizing things to you affect your mindset? And what
did you learn about yourself? Question? One question? I was
getting called the N word, you know, a hundred times
a day by by very good actors, very very good actors.
(07:09):
You know, it's rough. It twists your mind up. You
have to be really careful because you definitely, you definitely
twist your mind up. There's like a magic moment. As
an actor, you look for the best way I can
describe it, it's like you feel the character wash over you.
It'll be wardrobe, it'll be a scene, it'll be the
(07:30):
dialect something. What happened is we were trying on the
neck chains, so where it's you know, six weeks before
we're shooting and they're trying to get the right size
and the right weight. This feels horrendous. It won't be
(07:51):
too much work to find this character putting the chains on.
As an actor, you're always trying to find a thing
that makes you understand the character who won't pursuit of happiness.
Chris Gardner took me to the bathroom and him and
his son had to sleep in and I walked in
the bathroom with him and I was like, got it.
(08:13):
And as soon as those chains went on, I was
like got it. It turns off your agency. You don't
want to step, you don't want to move, you don't
want to look anybody in the face. It's deeply dehumanizing.
M hmmm, yeah, yeah, that just put me back in there.
(08:38):
That put me back in there. Um, yeah, well take
a moment. Sorry, Yeah, that's it. Yeah. So they put
it on and doing so I'm standing there and then
he goes to take it off and it doesn't work,
so it's a locked on and my heart jumps and
(09:02):
I'm like, oh no, oh no, oh no. So I'm
sitting there. Now he's running around looking for the keys,
and for fifteen minutes, I'm stuck there in the chain
and my heart is pounding and I'm like, will do
not freak right, And I'm sitting there and then it's like,
(09:22):
I got it. It's like I'm will Smith with people
running around looking for keys, and my heart is still
pounding and I'm still scared. Imagine what it was like
for Peter to have that stuff on barefoot and nobody cares.
And it was like, whoo, yeah, I got it. Yeah,
(09:45):
that was a powerful moment for you and Claus. Yes,
absolutely really dehumanizing. And I haven't been able to articulate why,
but I felt embarrassed. I was embarrassed while I was
standing there and I was waiting, and it was emasculating, dehumanizing,
all of that, and it was like like got it, Yeah,
(10:06):
got it. Once you experience those things, they go into
the same banks as your actual memories. You don't have
a separate place for acting. Your brain and your body
recognizes it the same way it recognizes actual memories. You
(10:26):
have nightmares about it the same way, and so it's
all of that kind of stuff. But six degrees of
separation was the only other time in my career where
I got lost, where I went too far with with
a character. Um, I wouldn't say I went too far
with Peter. I just lost track of how far I went. Okay,
(10:47):
got it? I got twisted up in there, Um a
little bit. What does that look like for you? Like
losing track of that? You go into a state and
when you go that one click too far, Will Smith disappears.
And then what happens is psychologically you go farther and
farther into Peter and you don't realize that you are
(11:11):
slipping away, and then it's over and you go back
and you look for you and you're gone. It's a
it's a hard thing to explain, right, So what happens
You play these characters, and when you play them long enough,
it's like moving to another country and speaking in another language.
(11:33):
If you speak the other language long enough, you'll start
to lose your native tongue, and you can forget how
you walk your previous personality right, and you know, you
can see when actors get out on that edge, right,
when you you touch that edge of no self. Yeah,
(12:00):
and it's terrifying. It's terrifying out there, Peter is as
far as I've ever been with a character. And you
have to actually train yourself to be able to go
farther and farther and farther. It's it's it's blissful out there,
right to be in a scene and you have that
(12:22):
moment on camera when you forget and you're lost, It's
like it's blissful, except when they say cut and you
reach back for you yeah, right, and you it's a
weird thing. But I got I got out there to
that terrifying, blissful edge. So I wanted to show you guys,
(12:46):
in real life some of the brutal, dehumanizing devices that
were used during slavery. When you're say, in real life,
do you mean right now here? Right? Yes? Oh no, no, no,
no no no, why I just want you have to
know so you have to know, Wow, this is insane.
(13:11):
So that would go around your neck, yes, wow, keeps
you from running. This is like the ones that were
in the movies that had like the bells on them
and stuff. Somebody would run. But like, who even dreams this?
Like that's what I'm figuring right now. To make it
feel the way to that m hmm yeahs oh my gosh.
(13:35):
And just feel the weight of that what it would
do in your neck. Imagine somebody puts that on your neck,
they can take and if you're a way like rape
anybody they want whenever they want. For me, as an actor,
my image was you guys, and imagine and being pulled
away right Just imagine somebody comes in here right now
(13:58):
and beats me and snatches me away, and you guys
don't know if you'll ever see me again. That is
the legacy of slavery in America. It creates generational trauma,
even on a cellular level, you know, scientifically, exactly as
(14:22):
brutal as it is, there's also the other side of
how resilient and powerful that blacks in America. It's incomprehensible. Honestly,
it's incomprehensible. Let's talk a little bit about your physicality
and what you had to go through to get your
body into the place making this movie because Willow kept
(14:44):
noticing in the movie, like he's getting skinnier, He's getting skinny.
You guys may remember I posted out of Shape the
dad Body picture. The Dad Boty picture was my beginning
of preparation to lose weight for Peter. I was probably
to five ish when I started, and at the lowest
(15:08):
on the movie, I got to one. For me, the
physicality is a big part of what makes people go WHOA. Yeah,
you know, to be able to transition and manipulate your
body as an actor is a big part of the
suspension of disbelief for people. And actually being out in
(15:29):
the swamps. Yeah, I'm sure you were just losing weight
just being yeah, just it's it's hot, it's nasty, you're
in the swamp. Your hands are dirty, so you don't
really want to grab food and eat really in it. Yeah,
when I went in there deep, it's insane. What's the
most impactful part of the movie for you? So? So
there was um And I can't even talk about Peter
(15:55):
without being Altieri. So but y'all see me cry all
the time. You'll see me cry all the time. So um,
Peter said in his writings or that probably dictations to somebody,
but the things that exist. Historically, Peter was beaten into
a coma, and in the coma he said, he met God.
(16:20):
And it's right in the middle of the movie. And
he's been running for a few days and there's no
food and no water and out in the swamp and
he's there and he's feeling lost, and he's feeling turned around,
and his hearing is going a little bit, and he
stops and he gets himself together and he goes, oh shock,
(17:15):
and he finds the gratitude to praise God in the
middle of that. It was one of the things that
I wanted to be able to share with you, all
the ideas that I learned from Peter. So the concept
is that nobody gets out of this life without having
(17:36):
to bear their cross. Facts from facts. So you may
not have to bear it to the level that Peter
had to bear it, or to the level that Jesus
had to bear it. But the only way to be
here joyfully is to be grateful for the cross you've
(17:58):
been given to bear. You have to know that suffering
leads to salvation, and the only thing that would make
you not reach the Promised Land is giving up and
Peter knew and trusted God fully that all he had
(18:24):
to do was bear his cross with gratitude. He was
saying thank you God in the middle of that. Peter's
faith throughout the whole movie was something that really stuck
out to me. Peter has absolutely changed my life, you know. So? Um? Yeah,
(18:46):
And I heard a great quote, the only way to
be here is you have to learn how to have
an open heart in hell. Yeah, here's a question from
a theater go or from Los Angeles. What we got.
My name is Stacy Ramsey. I'm twenty three years old
(19:07):
and I went through so many emotions throughout this whole movie,
to be honest, Um, some were sad, so we're happy.
Some felt really familiar because no matter what it is
that you go through, there's so many things, whether it's people, work, family,
that try to break parts of you, and it's so
important just to push through and not let them break you.
(19:28):
I have a question for Will. I just would really
like to know what form of personal suffering did you
tap into to execute this role. Wow, that's a crazy question.
I don't have, thank God, anything in my life comparable
to what Peter experienced. There's a universal suffering that I
(19:51):
think we can all connect on, but I don't know
what I would actually do in the face of that
kind of demid on a malevel to be really faced
with the darkness. I've had moments within myself where I've
had to face things, but like to look into the
(20:13):
eyes of that kind of malevolence, it's either you're enlightened
or you go crazy. Yes, there's Yeah, there's a term
Plato used that puts those together, divine madness. That there's
a certain divine madness that I was trying to depict
(20:35):
from Peter, because when you stop and you pray in
that moment, that is a taste of divine madness. That's
what I learned from Peter. Like the idea of the
darkness being the road to the light. Yeah. Facts. So
(20:58):
one of the most critical moment ments in the movie
for me was the speech that Ben Foster's character gives
story telling the story of his nigger house girl. And
what was so beautiful about Ben's portrayal is he loved her.
(21:18):
And what I love is that you can see his
heart was taught to hate. Yeah, my father, he's a
core Nuskar. My mother passed when I was young, So
(21:41):
the job of raising me, filling her how screw She
took care of me. She feed me, she washed me,
she taught me things. She's my friend. What evening, I
(22:06):
asked my father if she could join us for supper,
and he looked at me in a funny way and said,
then what I said, so we could eat together? To
what she asked? Then what? I didn't know. I was
(22:27):
just a boy, but he did. He said, first they
eat their food, and they'll take her jobs, and then
they'll steal our land. Well, you give them so much
as a crumb, they're going to take over the whole
damn country. Wow, that's crazy. And then he goes on
(22:52):
to tell the story and how he watched her die
for three days. His father taught him hate and through trauma.
It's like, I just couldn't imagine seeing someone you love
so much in the field dying for three days and
you can't do anything like that on a child's mind. Blunt, absolutely, Yeah.
(23:18):
Ben Foster is phenomenal in Emancipation. I hear he sent
the Red Table a message, and I haven't seen it yet.
Ben is the total opposite of his character. The first
day of set was staggering two hundred plus background actors
(23:40):
portraying the enslaved. I was walking past men in chains
and in situations of such tremendous violence, and then I
felt him. I didn't see him, I felt him. It
was Will on set, but it doesn't Will Smith as
(24:01):
we know him. It was a man, and that man
was vibrating. It's animal stuff. It's hard to explain, but
I could feel the presence of this man who is
digging deep. And I passed him and I felt, well,
I'm going to give him his space. We didn't speak
(24:22):
for six months of shooting. What I saw with Will
is an actor whom I've respected for for so very long.
I think does some of the most important work, not
just of his career, but of current day cinema. This
is a performance that speaks to the human spirit, against
all odds, to fight for love, the fight of faith,
(24:44):
the fight to endure and endure for love. I'm blown
away by what Will Smith did in this film. What
I hope people take away from this film is the
worst thing that we could do is not raise our hand,
is not to have an open dialogue. We must reflect
on our past and ordered to meet our current day,
and our current day is rife with frightening similarities of
(25:07):
what happened during this true story. When it took place,
I happened to believe babies are not born with hate
in their heart, that hate has learned, that hate can
be unlearned, and compassion can fill that void. Heal that virus,
and we can remind each other of our similarities or
commonalities with empathy. We don't have to get each other holy,
(25:31):
but we must recognize that we're all flesh and blood.
We're not here for long. Let's leave with kindness. Wow. Wow,
that's crazy. That was beautiful. That's great that he felt you,
he felt your presence. So my side of that, that's
(25:57):
my first time here in his side. Right. So we
were having delays. I think we didn't even get a
shot the first day. There was lightning and there was heat,
and we had literally lost an entire day. So I'm
doing my you know, thinking and the extras. Hey, thank
you all very much, everybody, blah blah blah. In my mind,
I was giving my best will Smith and Ben just
(26:21):
walked past me and didn't say nothing. I was like, oh,
he must he must not have seen me. And then
for six months. He didn't speak to me, he didn't
make eye contact with me, he didn't say a word,
(26:43):
he didn't acknowledge me for six months. But what he
did that first day, I was like, yep, got it.
We're not playing this is real, this is serious. We're
not fooling around with these ideas. And I really credit
then for clicking me into the next gear of depth
(27:08):
and focus. So the final day, me and Antoine or
at the monitor looking at the shot, and then comes over.
He never came to the monitor ever, he's there. He
comes to the monitor, he watches the shot and Antoine said,
I'm happy we got it, and then I look over it.
(27:31):
Then this is last day. He says nice to me,
like yeah, because it was like because you know we've
(27:52):
been we have been through that whole movie together. That
is crazy. Did you guys talk at all after that?
When you he left, he flew out, he went home.
It was his last shot day because he went from
he wanted to like, yeah, he wanted to make sure
(28:15):
I can officially stop and on his character, Ben set
the tone for everybody right, and he wasn't going to
his trailer. He was staying in his tent on the
set like although like his actor, like his character tent.
He had all of his stuff in his character Tent. Well,
(28:35):
you taught me this. Great great actors make everybody else's
job easier. If you're great at anything, you make it easier.
So that was it. You guys didn't talk anymore. No,
not till a few months after that. Yeah, that we
we came back together for suppress or something like that.
(28:56):
I was like, who are you? Who are you? You
kind soldier? Oh man, that's crazy. So the brilliant director
of Emancipation, Antoine Fuqua, wanted to say this, Hey, Will
and Red Table Talk, here's a few thoughts about Emancipation.
(29:17):
I thought I would share with you. When people go
to see this film, I'm hoping they'll be inspired and
experienced the love story and see a film about freedom
and faith and family as well as a story about
strength and perseverance. The story of Peter is incredible, a
man that was a slave but was free in his
(29:40):
mind and his heart and his spirit. Antoine is no joke.
This is what it's about. I respect that Antoine is
a is a beast man. He created something I think
is a real master. Yeah, it really is. The DP.
(30:02):
Bob Richardson put his thing down with this movie. The
cinematography is insane and I've never seen any movie that
just visually looks the way that this one does. One
of the things that Antoine said that was great about
that texture, the tone. He said he wanted to drain
the color out of the Confederacy, right for that not
(30:27):
to be glorified. There's a great shot with uh Peter
firing a gun at one of the last moments in
the battle with the American flag gone by. And the
story is that we fought for this country, right, We
(30:47):
fought and earned our position in this country. We don't
have to feel like outsiders here. This is this is
our home, right you very said of that, And the
thing is like, no, no, no, it's not America, no no, no,
no no. We are America, like own it and not
(31:09):
ownership in a way that is ours and not other people's,
like it's all of ours. We are a part of
the fiber of this place. The ownership has to be
in our minds in the same way the emancipation has
to be in our minds. Like Peter was enslaved, but
(31:33):
he was never a slave, but he was free. He
was free when I was growing up, you know, because
Daddy O was in the Air Force. Oh damn. Yeah.
So Daddy O raised me like American. He raised me
with the idea if somebody said go back to Africa, Nope,
(31:54):
you go back to wherever your people came from. I'm here,
you go back, right. I have this conversation with people
a lot of the times where they're like, this thing
that you're talking about is so dark, or this thing
that you know are shining light on is so terrible.
But it's like, we can never forget about the history
of the reality because if you don't know that those
types of things are possible and people can do that
(32:16):
to people, then you know you're gonna you have to
move throughout the world knowing history, you know, like those
who don't know their history or yeah, doomed to repeat it.
There's another one I really love. The one thing we
learned from history is that we don't learn anything from history. Yeah,
you do it all over again. Yeah exactly, you do
(32:37):
it all over again, and I'm hoping that it won't
be the case. Yeah. It was really critical for me,
for for you guys and really your generation to see
this movie and to understand the foundations of this story
and what it means in this country. You guys were
(32:59):
born with black president. I remember when Barack Obama got elected,
you and we were crying, and you guys couldn't be
like we knew he was gonna win. It was like
you guys grew up in at a largely different era.
So to me, it's really important when you know where
you've been. It helps you get a better sense of
where you're going or even why certain things are the
(33:21):
way that they are. Right before, we have a message
from your biggest fan, a message from my biggest fan.
Who is it? Hey, baby, this is your mama, and
I just want to tell you what a wonderful movie
in Emancipation is. I just couldn't believe a little wonderful
(33:44):
job that you performed because Peter just came right through
and I looked and looked, and I knew was, oh,
that is my child. But Peter just exuded through you,
and I just you just left yourself, just became Peter.
When Peter was in the swamp, and it's there and
(34:05):
it seems like forever in that water, and I wish
I could have just gone in and just got me out. Well,
I know how much hard work and dedication you put
into making this movie come to life. I can't wait
for the world to see it and learned from it.
I'm going to tell everyone that I knew that they
(34:27):
definitely need to go. I love you so much, and
I'm so proud of you and Trey Jaden and Willow.
Mom loves you so much, proper. I'm so glad that
we were able to have this conversation. I felt like
(34:47):
I learned so much in that the entire youth that
is going to learn so much. Emancipation is streaming now
on appletus class be ready. It's a red table ache
over with my kids, Willow, Jaden, Trey. I'm the boss,
I'm in charge, and we're talking about making a movie
(35:09):
it pans it pants. We're talking about the most grueling
and transformative No, no, no, it's it's Willow. It's not
because you guys are playing behind me. You're playing with her.
Ad Livin is how we got this house, alright. Me
(35:30):
A Lincoln is the only reason are here kept having
sex because I was a Livin. Come on, kids, we
got you. Guys are being so immature making the movie emancipation.
Tap now to watch. Check us out yes Yes, I'm
good at this. To join the red table Talk family
(35:53):
and become a part of the conversation. Follow us at
facebook dot com slash red table talk. Thanks for listening
to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast produced by Facebook, Watch,
Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.
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