Oct 03, 2024 - 23:17
By huffpost.com

'Men In Black' Director Says Will Smith Incident Shut Down Set For 3 Hours

Will Smith accidentally deployed a biological stink bomb during the making of “Men in Black,” according to director Barry Sonnenfeld.

During Wednesday’s episode of the podcast “Let’s Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa,” the filmmaker revealed how the set of the 1997 blockbuster had to be cleared out for hours after Smith passed some serious gas during a scene with co-star Tommy Lee Jones.

The incident went down while Smith and Jones were filming inside an airtight pod that served as the ultra-futuristic vehicle for their respective characters, Agents J and K.

As Sonnenfeld recalled on the podcast, “I say, ‘Roll camera,’ and I hear Will Smith go, ‘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.’”

While Jones was polite about his cast mate’s flatulence, the filmmaker said the “No Country for Old Men” actor practically jumped out of the pod, which was equipped with “locks to prevent it from opening and falling” during shots where the set piece was flipped upside down.

“So we race the ladder over. Tommy, like, reaches his leg out as the ladder is coming over, races down the stairs,” Sonnenfeld said. “And what happened was — Will Smith is a farter.”

“It’s just some people are [farters],” he continued. “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,” the “Enchanted” producer added.

It turns out Smith’s fart was so pungent that the film crew “evacuated the stage for about three hours.”