“We Evacuated The Stage For About Three Hours”, Says ‘Men in Black’ Director As He Recalls Will Smith’s Farting Incident On Sets

Barry Sonnenfeld, director of the Men in Black films, recently appeared on Kelly Ripa’s podcast Let’s Talk Off Camera, where he recounted a hilarious behind-the-scenes moment with Will Smith.

During the filming of a scene in which Smith and Tommy Lee Jones were sealed inside a spaceship pod, Smith accidentally passed gas, causing quite the disruption. Since the set for the spaceship scene was hermetically sealed, Smith’s apology quickly followed the incident, and Jones graciously responded, “That’s fine, Will. No worries.”

“There are locks to prevent it from opening and falling,” Sonnenfeld said. “I say, ‘Roll camera.’ And I hear Will Smith go, ‘Oh Jesus, so sorry. Tommy, so sorry. Baz, get the ladder.’ 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,” the director continued. “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. You don’t even want to be sitting next to him at the Disney ranch.”

Sonnenfeld concluded, “We evacuated the stage for about three hours. And that’s incredible. No, he’s, you know, a lovely guy. Just, he farts. Some do, some don’t.”

This incident has since become one of the lighter moments of the production of the 1997 hit movie Men in Black and its sequels, where Smith and Sonnenfeld reunited for Men in Black II (2002) and Men in Black 3 (2012).