The shocking speech with which Will Smith intends to clear his name

Will Smith’s long road to redemption is already underwayand proof of this are the news and interviews before the premiere of ‘Towards freedom’, the new film by the brilliant Antoine Fuqua for which the actor does not intend to censor the subject of the slap.

“There’s a lot of nuances and complexities to it, you know, but in the end, well, it just kind of went away, you know,” Smith said on ‘The Daily Show’ (via The Hollywood Reporter). “I guess what I would say is you never know what someone is going through.”

He went on to explain that he was going through something that night, but that “does not justify my behavior at all.” Recall that, at the recent Oscars, Chris Rock appeared on stage to present an award and, spotting Jada Pinkett Smith, he joked: “Jada, I can’t wait to see ‘Lieutenant O’Neil 2’.” At first, Will was seen to laugh and his wife to pout. The camera returned to Rock, and then Smith came on stage, slapped the comedian and returned to her seat. “Get my wife’s name out of your fucking mouth,” she yelled from his seat on two occasions. “Man, it was just a ‘Lieutenant O’Neil’ joke,” replied a stunned Rock who, as he could, continued his segment of the ceremony.

Shortly after, Smith won the Oscar, gave one of the most embarrassing speeches in living memory and, the next day, the Academy decided to ban him from the awards for the next ten years.

“You may wonder, what have I learned? That we have to be nice to each other, man,” says Smith. “You know, it’s hard. And I guess the most painful thing for me is that I took what was hard and made it hard for other people. You know, I understood what they say about hurt people hurting people.”

“There were many things,” continues the actor. “It was the little boy who saw his father hit his mother, you know, that all came up in that moment. That’s just not what I want to be.” Without a doubt, this is one of Will Smith’s best films.

“I had to forgive myself for being human,” Smith said. “Believe me, there’s no one who hates being human more than me. And just finding that space for myself inside of me to be human. It’s like, I want, I’ve always wanted to be Superman. I’ve always wanted to jump in and save the damsel in distress, you know. And I had to humble myself and realize that I’m an imperfect human being, and that I still have an opportunity to go out into the world and contribute in a way that fills my heart, and hopefully helps other people.” .

‘To Freedom’, written by Bill Collage (‘The Divergent Series: Loyal’, ‘Assassin’s Creed’), has been directed by Antoine Fuqua, the genius who conquered us in video stores thanks to ‘Replacement Assassins’ (1998) and who has been able to give us the odd gem like ‘Training Day’ (2001), ‘The Equalizer 2’ (2018).

Although it is planned to reach North American theaters on December 2, ‘to freedom’ will premiere worldwide on Apple TV+ on December 9, 2022.