Will Smith’s on-set antics caused crew to be evacuated for three hours while filming Men In Black

Will Smith’s antics on the set of the very first Men In Black film have come to light after the director revealed it halted production for three hours.

Men In Black director Barry Sonnenfeld has claimed that Will Smith’s antics during filming once triggered a three-hour evacuation of the set.

Speaking on the podcast Let’s Talk Off Camera With Kelly Ripa, the director recalled the incident on the 1997 sci-fi starring Smith and Tommy Lee Jones as secret agents defending the galaxy against aliens.

But instead, it seemed the cast and crew needed to be defended from Smith who “is a farter”, according to Sonnenfeld, who noted that the actor’s farts were frequent and stinky.

Men In Black director Barry Sonnenfeld recalled Will Smith’s fart caused a three-hour evacuation on set. Picture: Ethan Miller/Getty Images

In one scene, the filmmaker explained that the pair were “hermetically sealed” inside a pod that “locks to prevent it from opening and falling” as they shot an upside-down car scene. Unfortunately, that’s when Smith decided to let one rip of nuclear-level proportions.

“We were getting ready to shoot Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, and Tommy does not suffer fools, I’ll tell you that,” Sonnenfeld recalled of the grace and patience Lee displayed at that moment.

“I say, ‘Roll camera.’ And I hear Will Smith go, ‘Oh Jesus, so sorry. Tommy, so sorry. Baz, get the ladder,’” Sonnenfeld said. “And you hear Tommy saying, ‘That’s fine, Will. No worries, Will. Don’t worry, Will.’ Anyway, I don’t know what’s gone on, right?

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

Smith’s co-star Tommy Lee Jones was at the receiving end when Smith let one rip.

The director said 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 smell was so bad, they “evacuated the stage for about three hours”.

“He’s, you know, a lovely guy. Just, he farts. Some do, some don’t,” he concluded.

Sonnenfeld’s recollection comes one year after Smith revealed he did not originally want to star in the film.

Smith is labelled a “farter” by director Sonnenfeld. Picture: Matthias Nareyek/Getty Images for Sony Pictures

Jones assured Smith that all was good after the incident.

During an appearance on Kevin Hart’s Heart to Hart talk show, the actor said he had reservations given he had just starred in Independence Day and didn’t want to be pigeonholed.

“I kind of understood Men In Black a little bit, but I didn’t want to make Men In Black,” Smith admitted. “That was the next year after Independence Day. So I didn’t want to make two alien movies back to back.”

But a chat with MIB producer Steven Spielberg, who sent a helicopter to fetch Smith for their face-to-face meeting, was all it took to get on-board.

“I was in New York. It landed at his house. And, like, he had me at hello,” he remembered. “He said, ‘Tell me why you don’t want to make my movie…’ And he was the producer. And he put the ellipsis at the end, it was the dot, dot, dot.

“If he had continued, he would have said, ‘Joker, you know I made Jaws, right? You know I made ET.”

Originally published as Will Smith’s on-set antics caused crew to be evacuated for three hours while filming Men In Black