Will Smith Fired Racist ‘Ali’ Crew Members for Abusing a Black PA
Ali was one of the pivotal movies of Will Smith’s career. He played legendary boxer and activist Muhammed Ali. The production was not easy, from training to box to filming in Africa. One time, Smith himself fired crew members who were abusing a Mozambican production assistant, and other who protected the racist.
Smith writes about the Ali production in his autobiography, Will. Here’s why Smith fired the abusive crew while living up to Ali’s values.
Will Smith confronted racism on the set of ‘Ali’
Filming in Africa in 2001, racial tensions were still fresh between white South Africans and locals of Mozambique. One crew member assaulted a Mozambican production assistant by shoving his face in the bathroom toilet. The crew wanted to handle it internally, but Smith and director Michael Mann agreed the abuser had to go. The head of the crew gave an ultimatum: ‘If he goes, we all go,’ Smith wrote.
“The ‘all’ he was speaking of was about one hundred members of our South African crew,” Smith wrote. “If they were to leave, that would shut our film down – tens of millions of dollars down the drain. This was a potentially catastrophic threat. My heart pounded; my mind raced; I had promised Muhammed Ali that I would bring his story to the world. If I let the crew quit, the project could be doomed.”
Muhammed Ali inspired Will Smith to fire the racist crew member
Smith didn’t have a producer credit on Ali, though his manager James Lassiter did. Still, Smith was the star of the film and had the clout, and Mann’s ear. He decided what Ali stood for made letting the abusive crew member work on the film unacceptable.
“This moment is the whole point,” Smith wrote. “Muhammed Ali gave up everything for this very purpose. F*** this movie. Ali would never want his film to come to the screen on the back of a seventeen-year-old boy’s head in a toilet.”
Smith described his state of mind as “crystal clear.” He even used strong language to respond to the crew’s ultimatum.
“‘Then all of you motherf***ers can go the f*** home,’ I said,” he wrote. “‘I will spend every dime of my fee to fly a crew from the US. But what we’re not gonna have is people’s heads getting shoved into toilets on Muhammed Ali’s movie. Go. Home.’
Most of the ‘Ali’ crew stayed
Smith was willing to put his money where his mouth is. By 2001, he had the personal funds to hire new crew members after hits like Independence Day and Men in Black. Had it come to that, Ali would have continued production, but in the end only a few crew members stood by the abuser.
“Michael was 100 percent behind me,” Smith wrote. “Ultimately, only about 20 percent of the crew left. Michael and I ended up splitting the overages. It was a few million dollars between us, but it felt like a no-brainer.”
