Emancipation star Charmaine Bingwa dishes on first meeting with Will Smith

Emancipation star Charmaine Bingwa recently revealed she didn’t recognise her co-star Will Smith at their first meeting on the movie’s set.

Speaking to PEOPLE, Bingwa shared that she was elated to work with Smith but her first meeting was not she expected.

“When I first saw Will, he was so thin,” recalled Bingwa.

The actress continued, “He got so skinny for this role to be able to play him, and I did not recognise him.”

“I was like, 'Where's Will Smith? This is wild.' I was so inspired by his transformation, and he's a great leader. I think we all just followed suit and committed as hard as he did,” explained Bingwa.

Elsewhere in the interview, Bingwa discussed about her character as wife of Peter, Dodienne.

“We knew she existed,” remarked the 38-year-old.

The actress stated, “But a lot of it was for me to fill in the blanks and to colour her in, so to speak. I listened to a lot of narratives from enslaved people at that time, particularly women.”

“Women had to do the same amount of physical work as the men, and then they had to come home and run the household, stitch up clothes, make sure the family was catered for, and then had to face sexual advances from their slave owners,” asserted Bingwa.

She added, “I really wanted to make sure that I was able to tell as much of that story and honour Black women who are so often marginalised or forgotten completely.”