The 1997 movie scene thrown into chaos by Will Smith’s farts: “Get us out of here!”
Look, some people are always going to find farts funny; that’s just the way of the world. However, as hilarious as any given person finds flatulence, having it impact your work means those air biscuits have been baked on another level, as Will Smith was happy to display to his colleagues.
If you have to fart, then you have to fart, but if you have to fart, one of the worst possible places to do it is on the set of an incredibly expensive and effects-heavy motion picture production, especially if you’re in an enclosed space with a co-star who famously refuses to take no shit whatsoever from anyone.
And yet, even the perennially stony face of Tommy Lee Jones was broken by Smith’s cheese-cutting shenanigans, forcing Men in Black director Barry Sonnenfeld to halt the scene right then and there, with the actors unable to perform and deliver their lines under the threat of a noxious offence.
It’s just as well they got along, because as Jim Carrey infamously discovered, if Jones doesn’t like you, he has no issues telling you directly to your face that he doesn’t like you, regardless of how long you’ll be spending in his company and how many scenes you’ll be sharing in a months-long production.
A small mercy, perhaps, since Sonnenfeld still remembered those farts so vividly, decades after the sci-fi blockbuster was released. “Will has really nasty farts,” he explained. “There’s a scene where he and Tommy Lee are driving through the Midtown Tunnel, and the car goes upside down and they’re driving on the ceiling.”
What’s worse than farting in a hot car? Farting in an upside-down hot car, apparently. “We had a rig to put Will and Tommy into the car body, and then we had to seal that, and turn the rig upside down on a green screen stage in Manhattan,” he continued, which was a lot of work to prepare every take. “We finally got it upside down; we’re ready to shoot.”
Ready to shoot, until Smith unleashed arse-dwelling hell upon everyone in the vicinity. “We hear Will say, ‘Oh, Jesus! I’m so sorry, Tommy. Guys, get us out of here! Get us out!” the filmmaker elaborated, potentially suffering from some kind of fart-related PTSD from the horrors that followed his leading man’s wind-breaking.
Jones, ever the professional, was happy to persevere through the odours, but Smith disagreed. “Get us out!” he repeated, ruining a perfectly good shot because, as Sonnenfeld so aptly put it, “He’d farted so bad in this enclosed space.” They had to bail, and possibly even bring in some lads in hazmat suits to decontaminate the scene, holding up shooting until the smell had dispersed.
Lesson learned, Smith realised he’d be better off holding them in until he wasn’t hanging upside down alongside his co-star on the set of a $90 million blockbuster, but the secret was out: the former ‘Fresh Prince’ wasn’t so fresh anymore.
