Did you know Will Smith spent months watching autopsies to play pathologist in Concussion?

Filmmaker Peter Landesman's biographical sports drama, Concussion is hands down one of the highly lauded performances of Will Smith's career trajectory. Will essayed the role of Dr. Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist who challenges the National Football League for trying to quash his research on Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) suffered by football players. However, did you know that the 51-year-old used to watch pathologists perform autopsies for months to prepare for his role in the film?

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When Will Smith spoke about his experience of observing autopsies

At the world premiere of Concussion at AFI Fest in Los Angeles, California, Will Smith had spilled the beans about the reason why he took up the film and the prep that went behind in bringing Bennet Omalu's story on the big screen. Upon taking up the role of Omalu, Smith said that he was conflicted between his love for the game, i.e.football and the story of the Nigerian-born doctor. Being a father to a son who played football in high school for four years, the Bad Boys actor felt the need to deliver the pathologist's medical discovery. He stated that he did not know there was a potential long-term neurological illness and felt that the parents of football players needed to know about it and understand the risks.

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Speaking about his preparation for playing the role of a pathologist, Smith revealed that he spent months researching with Omalu, especially observing him and other pathologists perform autopsies. At the AFI Fest premiere, the Hitch actor also mentioned that he gained a deeper perspective of Bennet's mission to let the world know about the long-term brain damage issues in football players. Elaborating more about his experience of working with Omalu, Will Smith expressed saying there is a high level of spirituality involved when Bennet performs an autopsy.

He continued saying to find that connection with the dead, he saw a human body get dismantled. He added stating he got an extremely powerful sense that a human being is not about their body. Explaining further, he said that when he was watching him connect, the 'thing', which he referred to as 'the soul' or 'the battery', what makes a human being who they are, was missing. He concluded saying everything was still there, all the pieces were still there, except for 'that very thing'.

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