Will Smith and Martin Lawrence have been big-screen partners for decades, yet they still know exactly how to push each other’s buttons.
At the Los Angeles premiere of Bad Boys: Ride or Die on Thursday, May 30, the two veteran actors candidly shared the small quirks about each other that they find annoying.
Unsurprisingly, Lawrence drew first blood. “He likes to rehearse all the time,” Lawrence told People of Smith.
“That’s funny. I definitely like to…”, Smith admitted. However, the Men in Black star had a more pointed quirk about Lawrence that bugged him.
“It’s not a hate, but there’s a fun quirk that makes me laugh about Martin all the time. He never takes two sips out of a water bottle,” Will explained. “He drinks the whole water bottle in one go, every time. It’s like, ‘Yo, man!’ “
“That’s because I can’t babysit water,” Matin shot back.
Will Smith and Martin Lawrence Endured a Troublesome Shoot for the New ‘Bad Boys’ Film
In the latest trailers for the new Bad Boys film, Smith and Lawrence’s characters, Mike and Marcus, are thrust into a perilous situation following the death of their commanding officer, Captain Conrad Howard (portrayed by Joe Pantoliano).
Framed in a corruption case, they find themselves on the run, navigating a web of danger and deception.
However, putting together this fourth installment in the iconic series proved difficult.
Filming for the project began in Atlanta in April 2023, but was halted in July due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. Production resumed once the strike ended and concluded in March 2024.
“We got shut down in the middle. Double strikes — writer strike, actor strike — right in the middle of the movie,” Smith recalled.
“We wanted to finish the movie really bad. We knew that we were making something special, so trying to keep it all together during that time was difficult,” he added.
However, the forced downtime ended up having a silver lining according to the I Am Legend star.
“As it turned out, it actually helped us — the movie ripened during that time,” Smith revealed.
The film, directed once again by Adil El Arbi and Bilall, who previously helmed the third installment Bad Boys for Life in 2020, features an impressive cast including Vanessa Hudgens, Eric Dane, Alexander Ludwig, Tasha Smith, Ioan Gruffudd, Tiffany Haddish, Paola Nuñez, Jacob Scipio, and Melanie Liburd.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die hits theaters on June 7.