Will Smith's Former Costar Encourages Fans To 'Forgive' Him After Famed Oscar's Slap

Will Smith shocked the world when he walked on stage and slapped Chris Rock across the face at the 94th Academy Awards this past March after the comedian made a joke about his wife's shaved head.

Now, eight months later, one of Smith's former costars is encouraging the Bad Boys actor's Hollywood comeback and calling for audiences to show him grace.

"People make mistakes," Bai Ling, who starred alongside Smith in Wild Wild West, said in a recent interview. "The mistake he made was not good. It needs to be recognized and changed."

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"When he comes back, he will be a much better person," she added of the star's ongoing return to the big screen. "He will have more power in humbleness and influence people."

Discussing how she believed fans and other celebrities should respond to his continued work following the Oscars incident, she noted, "We have to forgive — we all have made mistakes."

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One person who may not forgive the incident quite so easily is Rock. Earlier this year, the Madagascar voice actor called Smith "ugly," claiming he'd hidden his true self from the world for decades throughout his successful acting career.

"Will did the impression of a perfect person for 30 years, and he ripped his mask off and showed us he was as ugly as the rest of us," Rock told Dave Chappelle at a sold out U.K. show. "Whatever the consequences are … I hope he doesn’t put his mask back on again and lets his real face breathe. I see myself in both men."

But no matter what the world thinks of him, the Aladdin star has officially stepped back into the acting world. Smith attended a special screening of his new Apple flick, Emancipation, in October, and proved he had all intentions of moving on from the slap when he focused on the message of the film rather than his recent controversy during the question and answer portion of the screening.

"Throughout my career, I’ve turned down many films that were set in slavery. I never wanted to show us like that. And then this picture came along. And this is not a film about slavery," he explained. "This is a film about freedom. This is a film about resilience. This is a film about faith. This is a film about the heart of a man — what could be called the first viral image."

Ling spoke with The Sun Smith and the future of his career.