Will Smith was among the high-profile actors of color snubbed in this year's Academy Award nominations, renewing the widespread #OscarsSoWhite hashtag, but if you ask his former "Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air" co-star Janet Hubert, Smith's work in "Concussion" didn't deserve any recognition anyway.
After taking a stance on Jada Pinkett Smith's decision to boycott the Oscar ceremony, Hubert told HuffPost Live's Alex Miranda on Thursday that she wasn't impressed with Smith's Nigerian accent in the film, and his performance didn't merit attention from the Academy.
"No. The accent for me was not good. The accent for me was all over the place," Hubert said, adding that she doesn't think Smith fully grasped the differences between the many dialects of the various parts of Africa. "It's really something that you have to study phonetically," she said.
Overall, the actress said Smith couldn't compare to the actors who starred in other hit films this year, like "The Revenant" or "Beasts of No Nation."
"I also just always see Will. I want to be [transported] when I see an artist. When I see Leonardo DiCaprio take on a role, I no longer see Leonardo DiCaprio," she said. "When I see Idris Elba take on a role, like he did in 'Beasts of No Nation,' I hated him because he was so good, [and his character] was so bad. I want to be transported."
Hubert's longstanding rift with Smith is no secret. The actress explained to HuffPost Live that the problems with her former co-star began when she tried to get a pay raise on the "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air."
"I went to [Smith and] I said, 'Hey ... let's go and try to get a raise.' And he said, 'My deal is my deal, and y'all's deal is y'all's deal,'" she said. "And I thought we should be more like the cast of 'Friends.' Let's get some money, baby."
Shortly thereafter, Hubert said she and Smith parted ways, and she found herself locked out of the industry.
"I was a part of that system that was blackballed by Will Smith 25 years ago [because he used] that word, 'difficult.' [He said,] 'She was difficult.' Janet Hubert was never difficult," she said. "Janet Hubert never walked off that set. All of that crap that he said happened, never happened."
Check out the video above to hear more of her story, and click here to see the whole HuffPost Live conversation with Janet Hubert .
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