The Hilarious Independence Day Line That Will Smith Completely Improvised
Will Smith has always been a man of many talents, and improvisation is most definitely one of them. From his days of rapping with DJ Jazzy Jeff, to busting chops on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," and his countless movies over the years, Smith is never afraid to work quickly on his feet when it comes to entertaining people. And this was especially the case for his first big blockbuster, "Independence Day."
You see, according to writer and producer Dean Devlin, a lot of what viewers see in the movie was actually improvised (via Republic World). This includes most of the dialogue in the scenes that co-star Jeff Goldblum shared with Smith and Judd Hirsch, who played Goldblum's father. But what was perhaps the most genius and memorable instance of improv in "Independence Day" has to have been the Utah salt flats scene featuring a downed Captain Steven Hiller, Smith's character, begrudgingly dragging the body of a giant, dead alien.
It's during this moment that the "Bad Boys" star utters a hilarious line, which he apparently made up all on his own.
"And what the hell is that smell?!"
According to WhatCulture and other reports, Will Smith was actually smelling something insanely rotten and bad that day when he uttered his improvised line — "And what the hell is that smell?!" — while dragging Captain Hiller's dead alien buddy. The salt flats near the Great Salt Lake in Utah, where the scene was filmed, is reportedly home to millions of tiny brine shrimp. When the little critters die, their bodies sink to the bottom of the lake mud and decompose, thus creating a terrible stench for anyone in the vicinity, WhatCulture reports.
"I have traveled to many places on this earth and few match the WTF factor as much as the salt flats do," explained a Reddit user in an "Independence Day" discussion on the scene. "It's truly the worst thing I've ever smelled," added another user. "I thought it was some crazy sewage dump at first."
As we all know, Smith would go on to have a huge movie and entertainment career filled with countless other moments of improv and thinking quick on his feet. But he'll likely never forget that one funky, foul day in the Utah salt flats.