Will Smith took to an awards stage for the first time since those Oscars

Nearly a year has passed since Will Smith twice made the walk up to the stage at the 2022 Oscars for two very different reasons: to slap host Chris Rock across the face in response to a joke Rock made at the expense of Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett-Smith, and to accept the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Richard Williams in King Richard.

On Wednesday, Smith returned to the awards stage, marking his first in-person acceptance since the turbulent (and oft-discoursed) events of last year’s Academy Awards. Smith has won awards since, but has celebrated them in private—he was notably not in attendance at the NAACP Image Awards on February 25, although he posted a thank you message to his Instagram after winning best actor for his work in Emancipation.

Smith chose the African American Film Critics Association Awards to make his return to the awards circuit, held Wednesday evening at the Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. Smith and his Emancipation director Antoine Fuqua were honored with the Beacon Award at the ceremony— they took the stage together to make a joint acceptance speech.

“The Beacon Award is intended to highlight films that are tackling challenging subjects with insight, enlightening, as well as engaging the audience,” Fuqua said, per The Hollywood Reporter. “It was our hope that Emancipation, that it would be able to bring Peter’s triumphant story and unwavering faith and his deep love for his family to life.” After thanking Apple, the AAFCA, and the film’s entire cast and crew, he turned the mic over to Smith.

To begin his speech, Smith emphasized that Emancipation “was the most individual difficult film of my entire career.” Smith plays Peter, an enslaved man who undergoes brutal trials and tribulations to reach freedom, in the AppleTV+ original film.

“It’s really difficult to transport a modern mind to that time period. It’s difficult to imagine that, that level of inhumanity,” he continued. Smith specifically recalled one scene, wherein a white cast member spontaneously spat on his chest as part of a particularly charged scene.

“If I had pearls on, I definitely would’ve clutched them,” Smith said of the spit-take. “I wanted to say, ‘Antoineeeeee,’ but I stopped, and I realized that Peter couldn’t have called the director.”

He continues: “I just held in that moment, and there was a part — it makes me teary right now — there was a part of me that was grateful that I got to really understand. And then, in the distance, I hear a voice, and Antoine says, ‘Hey, let’s do a take without the spit.’ And in that moment, I knew that God was real.”

Concluding his speech, Smith took a moment to shout out Apple, who he says “never flinched” on their support of the film despite a seemingly ballooning budget.

“It was the first time I had heard from a studio that the story was more important than how much it costs to get it done, so then we added some more stuff that we wanted,” Smith said. “They make iPhones. They can do it.”