Will Smith Finds “Poetic Perfection” at the ‘Emancipation’ Premiere

Eight months after Will Smith dealt the infamous slap that threatened to taint his image forever, he returned to his first red carpet since Oscar night. On Wednesday, Smith was front and center at the premiere for Emancipation, the Apple TV+ slave drama in which he plays Peter—a character based on a real man whose escape from slavery would shed unsparing light on the horrors of this historical period. 

“When I took this film, I envisioned the potential service it could be to modern social conversation,” he told The Hollywood Reporter on the red carpet, where, the outlet says, Smith was greeted with “cheers from the crush of photographers.” The reigning best-actor Oscar winner continued: “To have a movie like this in this time for me, and even this time in my life, is poetic perfection.”

Flanked by his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, and his three children—Trey, Jaden, and Willow—Smith spent much of the event artfully binding his recent personal plight to that of his character. “The realization for me that this was not a movie about slavery—when I read it, this was a movie about freedom,” he told reporters. “This was a movie about emancipation. I had seen the picture, but as I got to know Peter and understand some of the experiences of Peter and the way he was able to sustain faith in the heart of the greatest imaginable human atrocities…That’s what attracted me to Peter, and I wanted to be able to study and learn and to know how to do that myself.”

The fate of Emancipation was reportedly in flux following Smith’s slap of Chris Rock on live TV. But a pair of special screenings in October—first at an NAACP-hosted event at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 51st Annual Legislative Conference, followed by a starry viewing weeks later with Dave Chappelle, Tyler Perry, Kenya Barris, A$AP Rocky, and Rihanna in attendance—primed the film for an official awards-season release.

Smith’s return to the spotlight was bolstered by a tearful mea culpa earlier this week on The Daily Show With Trevor Noah, where he gave his first late-night interview since the incident. “That was a rage that had been bottled for a really long time,” he said of his actions, later stating, “I understood the idea when they say hurt people hurt people.”

The movie’s director, Antoine Fuqua, who was absent at the premiere due to filming The Equalizer 3 in Italy with Denzel Washington, told Vanity Fair that he wanted the emotional impact of his project to supersede any controversy surrounding it. “The film to me is bigger than that moment,” Fuqua said. “Four hundred years of slavery is bigger than one moment. My hope is that people will see it that way and watch the movie and be swept away with the great performance by Will and all the real hard work that the whole crew did.”

Even if nominated for his role, Smith is unable to attend next year’s Oscars. But he may have pulled off an even more impressive feat: his comeback. “Peter has been in my heart in a beautiful way,” Smith told Entertainment Tonight at the premiere. “The recognition of the relationship between suffering and salvation, the realization that nobody gets out of bearing their cross. It’s just been a really beautiful, beautiful transformation.” 

Emancipation hits select theaters on December 2 and streams on Apple TV+ the following week.