When Will Smith slapped Chris Rock on the stage at the 94th Academy Awards, it immediately jumped to the list of most controversial sights in the history of the Oscars. And it was all over a mediocre joke tied to a movie pretty much nobody talks about anymore. Now, G.I. Jane star Demi Moore is weighing in on that Oscars moment – and she has clearly taken a side.
Speaking with Deadline, Demi Moore said that Oscars fiasco came from a good place out of presenter Chris Rock, saying assaulter (and eventual Best Actor winner that night) Will Smith read it all wrong. “I think, if I’m interpreting correctly, I don’t think Chris meant it as a slight. I actually think he was paying it as a compliment. And so there might have just been a little bit of a misunderstanding, a misperception of what he was saying.”
As far as G.I. Jane itself goes, it may not have gotten any Oscar recognition, but Demi Moore still sees it as a landmark in her career, especially getting to work with director Ridley Scott. “Highlight. Highlight for me. Yeah, absolutely absolutely…First of all, he has this ability to, you know, you could be asking a question like, ‘I’m not – what are we doing here?’ And literally you give him a piece of paper and then, you know, 20 seconds. He’s drawn a storyboard for you. You’re seeing it. And I have a lot of pride in that film. I think it may have been slightly ahead of its time and perhaps challenging in many respects to the status quo, which I like. But I think it talked about a film that really holds up. I think that that really holds up.”
Demi Moore would unjustly receive a Razzie nomination for G.I. Jane (probably because she had the gall to be one of Hollywood’s most beautiful actresses and shave her head), but she’s now finally on the Oscar trail with The Substance, with the odds in her favor to take home Best Actress.
What is your takeaway from The Slap three years later?
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