Barry Sonnenfeld Claims Will Smith Fart on ‘Men in Black’ Forced Three-Hour Evacuation

Veteran filmmaker Barry Sonnenfeld has a new book out this week, Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time , that publisher Hachette Books is teasing for its “cavalcade of sometimes baffling, often enlightening and always funny stories about Sonnenfeld’s many films and television shows.”

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The promo push has Sonnenfeld squeezing some of those tales out in real life, including an, um, gassy anecdote about his superstar collaborator Will Smith. Sonnenfeld worked closely with Smith on a number of films including the Men in Black franchise and Wild Wild West , and it was on the former that Sonnenfeld claims a stinky situation presented itself.

“We were getting ready to shoot Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, and Tommy does not suffer fools, I’ll tell you that,” Sonnenfeld told Kelly Ripa on a new episode of her SiriusXM podcast Let’s Talk Off Camera . “They have to be put in this device, which is [a car] that transforms into a hyper car, and [they’re] going to go through the Midtown tunnel upside down. We have to bring a ladder over on wheels like it’s like the old days when you would get on airplanes from the tarmac. We get them up there and we put them in the thing and we turn it upside down and we’re ready to shoot.”

The co-stars had to be “hermetically sealed” into the device, which appeared in the 1997 installment. It apparently locked to prevent it from opening and falling out, Sonnenfeld went on to say. “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.'”

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Sonnenfeld said that they raced a ladder over to get the actors out of the device and Jones “races down the stairs” to exit. “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. You don’t even want to be sitting next to him at the Disney ranch.”

But wait, there’s more: “We evacuated the stage for about three hours, and that’s incredible. He’s a lovely guy, just he farts. Some do, some don’t.”

Nobody need remind the Miami Dolphins. The odor-free clip of the Men in Black scene is below. New episodes of SiriusXM’s Let’s Talk Off Camera With Kelly Ripa are available every Wednesday on the SiriusXM app and wherever podcasts are available.

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