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Will Smithlearned the hard way that ice isn't always nice.
The 57-year-old actor revealed that he almost died while diving in the Arctic as part of his recently released Disney+ travel series,Pole to Pole With Will Smith.
"We went scuba diving at the North Pole, right? So we did a dive under the ice," Smith explained to hostJimmy Fallonon Tuesday's episode ofThe Tonight Show. "So you go under the ice, and the ice can be up to 10 feet thick. So we're under, we went out about 40 yards away… It's like an upside-down ice mountain range, right?"
Todd Owyoung/NBC
However, his underwater adventure took a turn for the worse only minutes after it had begun.
"We went under, and I start hearing, 'Abort dive! Abort dive! Abort!'" Smith recalled. "And I'm like, 'Oh no,' right? So I went to ascend and hit ice. I was like, 'Oh no, Will, calm down. Calm down.' You have a tether on, and you have to pull yourself back to the hole, right? I grabbed and accidentally pulled my mask off."
He immediately affixed his mask back to his face and tried his best to calm himself down after the heart-pounding experience. "I was like, 'If I get out of here, I'm only gonna do Black stuff from here on out,'" he joked. "I promise Lord! African American behavior from here on out!"
Smith explained that he was in the process of calming down when he felt somebody grab "my tether up top and started pulling" him to safety.
"When I realized I was good, I just relaxed and I looked around and when I tell you, the sun is coming through the ice and it went from terror to the most spiritual, beautiful thing," he said. "And I was just like, 'Whoever's up there, don't let go of my tether!'"
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That wasn't the only deadly adventure that Smith embarked on for the series. He also recalled his unique experience hunting for an anaconda while in the Amazon.
"We were with the natives, and they didn't even have no clothes on, their whole name and address was hanging out," Smith said. "And so we're going down the river, and they see the anaconda and jump out of the boat into the water and swim for the anaconda."
TheMen In Blackalum explained that their hunt was part of a larger "conservation" initiative.
"They had a sense that there was some kind of illegal dumping going on, and the scales of the anaconda, they hold whatever's in the water," he said. "So they would take a scale from the anaconda and test it to be able to use it in court."
Still, he added, "I don't know why they needed me!"
Watch Smith discuss his near-death experience — and hold an anaconda — in the clip above.
Read the original article onEntertainment Weekly
