Will Smith breaks down generational trauma, filming ‘Emancipation’ on latest ‘Red Table Talk’

The latest episode of "Red Table Talk" is a Smith "takeover" episode, on which he sits at the Red Table with his three children.

Jared Alexander

Dec 13, 2022

Will Smith is breaking it down on “Red Table Talk.” The latest episode of the Emmy Award-winning series is a Smith “takeover” episode, on which the Oscar-winning actor sits down at the Red Table with his three children, opening up about his life and shooting his latest film, “Emancipation.”

As theGrio previously reported, “Emancipation,” from filmmaker Antoine Fuqua, tells the story of Peter, an enslaved man who was the subject of the famous photograph “The Scourged Back” in 1863. The gruesome photo, published in Harper’s Weekly, would go on to galvanize and shift the conversations surrounding slavery in this country at the time.

In an exclusive “Red Table Talk” clip obtained by theGrio, Smith breaks down the headspace he had to get into in order to portray Peter, who escapes slavery from Louisiana and towards freedom.

The latest episode of “Red Table Talk” is a Will Smith “takeover” episode, on which the Oscar-winning actor sits down at the Red Table with his three children, (Standing, from left) Willow, Trey and Jaden. (Photo: Jordan Fisher)

“Me as an actor, my image was you guys and imagining being pulled away,” the actor told his children, Trey Smith, Willow Smith and Jaden Smith. “Just imagine somebody comes in here right now and beats me and snatches me away, and you guys don’t know if you’ll ever see me again. That is the legacy of slavery in America. It creates generational trauma, even on a cellular level.”

Willow chimes in during the clip, “It’s been proven! Scientifically!” Will adds that as “brutal” as our history is, there is something to how “resilient and powerful” Black Americans have become in spite of these hardships. Check out the moving clip below:

The episode also follows Will as he shares how “for the first time in his career, he nearly ‘went too far’ and almost ‘lost himself,'” per a description of the film obtained by theGrio. Fuqua, his “Emancipation” co-star Ben Foster and even his mother also appear in the episode with messages for the actor.