Recent Academy Award winner Will Smith has revealed his thoughts and feelings over releasing his upcoming historical drama, Emancipation, in the wake of The Slap Heard Round The World. In case you somehow missed it, Smith managed to stall his career on the same night it reached its peak when he took to the stage to strike comedian Chris Rock across the face not long before being awarded the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in King Richard. Here’s what Smith had to say about releasing the movie amid the controversy.

While there had been whispers that Emancipation could see Smith taking to the stage again for receiving another Best Actor Oscar for his central performance, the actor reportedly knows “there’s no chance of that now,” according to EW. There had been rumors of shifting the release date of Emancipation, and perhaps even canceling the project altogether following Smith’s outburst. Instead, Emancipation will be released in select cinemas before landing on Apple TV+ in December.

“The only discomfort my heart has around that is that so many people have done spectacular work on this film. I definitely lose a couple winks of sleep every night thinking that I could have potentially penalized my team, but I’m going to do everything I can to make sure everyone gets seen in the light that they deserve.”

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“Of course, I wanted people to see the film. My conversation was always, ‘Isn’t 400 years of slavery, of brutality, more important than one bad moment?’” Emancipation director Antoine Fuqua said of releasing the movie in the midst of The Slap. “We were in Hollywood, and there’s been some really ugly things that have taken place, and we’ve seen a lot of people get awards that have done some really nasty things. So, I think Apple considered all those things, and we discussed a lot of those things. Then, a decision was made by the people in charge of distribution and the money at Apple — and I’m grateful. I’m really grateful.”

Emancipation Has Been Well-Received by College Students, Will Smith Reveals

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As well as praising the team behind Emancipation, Smith took also revealed the reaction they got when showing the movie at college campuses and the response from students regarding the powerful, distressing subject matter of an enslaved man escaping from a Louisiana plantation, outwitting cold-blooded hunters, and joining the Union Army.

Starring Will Smith, Ben Foster, Steven Ogg, Charmaine Bingwa, Gilbert Owuor, Mustafa Shakir, and Grant Harvey, Emancipation is scheduled to be released in select cinemas on December 2, 2022, before its streaming release on December 9, 2022, by Apple TV+.

“We’ve been showing it on college campuses, and I’ve been very surprised at the hunger these students have for this story to be told in this way. They’re literally clapping and standing up in the middle of the screenings. These kids grew up with a Black president. They don’t have, I guess, the aversion to [discussing slavery as] someone my age may have. They actually are open and want to know the truth of the history. I think that being able to depict the harshness and the brutality — but also the bravery, love, passion, and faith — will be helpful for all of us in the cultivation of compassion and the squelching of the fear that is growing between us.”