The year was 1996. Will Smith, ascendant from the smashing success of Independence Day, and Tommy Lee Jones, recovering from Batman Forever, got into a hermetically sealed cockpit to film one of the more iconic moments from Men in Black when Smith let out an unforgettably bad fart.
That’s according to filmmaker Barry Sonnenfeld, who shared the anecdote on SirusXM podcast Let’s Talk Off Camera this week during the press tour for his new memoir Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time (via The Hollywood Reporter). The Men in Black director was describing the setup for filming the “don’t push the red button” scene, in which the alien-policing rookie played by Smith accidentally ignites the jet propulsion system for his partner’s black Ford Crown Victoria while inside the Queens–Midtown Tunnel.
The supersonic car ride scene in which Smith and Jones are upside down was shot in a “hermetically sealed” cockpit to prevent them from falling out. “What happened was, Will Smith is a farter,” said Sonnenfeld, who worked with the actor on Wild Wild West and other films as well. “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.”
Jones and Smith had apparently both just gotten seated and strapped in for the cameras to begin rolling when the latter beefed. “I hear Will Smith go, ‘Oh, Jesus, so sorry. Tommy, so sorry. Baz, get the ladder,’ Sonnenfeld recalled. “And you hear Tommy saying, ‘That’s fine, Will. No worries, Will. Don’t worry, Will.’” The set apparently had to be “evacuated” for over three hours before filming could resume. “He’s a lovely guy, just he farts,” the filmmaker said. “Some do, some don’t.”