Will Smith‘s role as Agent J in Men In Black is one of his most loved performances to date. Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, the film also featured Tommy Lee Jones as the other main lead and released in 1997. In a recent interview, Barry shared a hilarious anecdote from the MIB set and revealed that Will Smith's fart once brought the shoot to a halt for three hours. “We were getting ready to shoot Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. They have to be put in this device, which is [a car] that transforms into a hypercar. We get them up there and we put them in the thing and we turn it upside down and we're ready to shoot, ” Barry Sonnenfeld said to Kelly Ripa on a new episode of her podcast Let's Talk Off Camera.
He added, “They're hermetically sealed in this space, and there are locks to prevent it from opening and falling. I say 'Roll camera, and I hear Will Smith go, 'Oh, Jesus. So sorry. Tommy, so sorry. Baz, get the ladder! And what happened was, Will Smith is a farter. It's just some people are. And you really don't want to be inside a very small hermetically sealed space with a Will Smith fart. “
Barry Sonnenfeld said, “We evacuated the stage for about three hours. He's, you know, a lovely guy. Just, he farts."
Last year, Will Smith revealed how he was persuaded to star in Men in Black by producer Steven Spielberg. Speaking on Kevin Hart's Heart to Hart talk show, Will admitted that he was apprehensive about signing the film immediately after his hit flick Independence Day. He said, “I kind of understood Men in Black a little bit but I didn't want to make Men in Black. That was the next year after Independence Day. So I didn't want to make two alien movies back to back.” Will Smith added that Steven Spielberg contacted him directly and sent a helicopter for him so they could speak face-to-face.
Will Smith and Barry Sonnenfeld will go on to work together in two more Men in Black sequels, Men in Black II in 2002 and Men in Black 3 in 2012. The duo also collaborated on the 1999 film Wild Wild West.
