For Will Smith, it was a case of 'art imitates life' at the 94th Academy Awards.
Moments before Smith won Best Actor for his role as Richard Williams - tennis superstars Venus and Serena's father - in King Richard, the 53-year-old smacked presenter Chris Rock on stage for making a distasteful joke about Jada Pinkett Smith's appearance.
The Wild Wild West actor said in his acceptance speech: "Art imitates life. I look like the crazy father, just like they said about Richard Williams. Love will make you do crazy things."
On how he related to Williams, Smith further said: "Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family. In this time in my life, in this moment, I am overwhelmed by what God is calling on me to do and be in this world.
"Making this film, I got to protect Aunjanue Ellis, who is one the most strongest, most delicate people I've ever met. I got to protect Saniyya and Demi, the two actresses that play Venus and Serena... I'm being called on in my life to love people and to protect people."
At a global press conference for the film last year, Smith said that a viral interview of a 14-year-old Venus Williams in 1995 changed his parenting at the time, reports
Tennis.com.
A visibly exasperated Williams interjected when ABC News Day One journalist John McKenzie, persisted with a line of questioning.
"The look of Venus' face...that image burned in my heart because that's how I wanted my daughter to look when I showed up. It was like the look on Venus' face...it was like she had a lion, and she was so confident and so comfortable that her lion wasn't going to let anything happen to her," he said.
Smith added: "I fell in love with Richard Williams - that was 20 something years ago, and when the opportunity to be a part of this came up, that was the first thing that I remembered. I knew I wanted to show a father protecting a daughter like that to the world."
To get into character for the role, Smith said that he was "trying to follow the same steps that Richard followed.
