Charmaine Bingwa and Will Smith.Photo: Matt Baron/BEI/Shutterstock
Will Smith’sEmancipationcostarsCharmaine BingwaandBen Fosterare singing his praises.
At theAntoine Fuqua-directed film’s Los Angeles premiere Wednesday night, Bingwa gushed to PEOPLE of the “beautiful” Smith, 51: “He’s very generous and I like to work with actors who, when you look in their eyes, you can kind of see the world in their eyes, and he has that.”
TheGood Fightactress, who pays Smith’s character’s wife in the drama, goes on to note that it felt “so easy to be connected to him on screen.”
“And it worked, because we had a great love to portray, you know? So I’m very glad it was that way. It would be a different movie otherwise,” Bingwa continues. “But no, he’s marvelous.”
“I think the whole world loves him,” she says.
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Cast ofEmancipation(2022).Eric Charbonneau/Shutterstock
Asked what makes Smith a star, Foster, 42, who plays a man pursuing enslaved people seeking freedom, says, “It’s like, how do you describe a sunset? How do you describe the stars? Some people just have the thing.”
“But what Isaw was him going deeperthan I’ve ever seen before,” he adds.
Foster tells PEOPLE he has been a fan of Smith — who stars inEmancipationas Peter, a man running from hunters and through Louisiana on his journey toward freedom — “for a long time.”
“So [it was] an honor to work with him, and he’s done some of the finest work, I believe, of his career,” the actor continues of Smith’s role in the film.
Smithattended the premiere as well, alongside his entire familyat Los Angeles' Regency Village Theatre for the red-carpet event.
During his recent press tour, Smith said thathe will “absolutely respect” moviegoers who are “not ready” to see the new moviein the wake of theOscarsincident in which he slappedChris Rock, and expressed concerns that his actions at the ceremonywill negatively impactEmancipation.
“There’s a harsh reality in this film that I feel when you confront it, when you have to look at it, I hope it creates empathy and compassion that will help us to avoid some of the same paths that we went down as a country in the past,” the actor added.
Aside from Smith, Bingwa and Foster,Emancipationalso stars Gilbert Owuor, Mustafa Shakir, Steven Ogg, Grant Harvey, Ronnie Gene Bivens, Jayson Warner Smith, Jabbar Lewis, Michael Luwoye, Aaron Moten and Imani Pullum.
source: people.com
