What did Denzel Washington tell Will Smith after the slap heard round the world?

Moments after the Academy Awards slap heard 'round the world, Will Smith huddled during a commercial break with Denzel Washington, another of the Best Actor nominees.

No one could hear what Smith discussed with the man who is both an A-list player and the rare Hollywood superstar who has -- after years in hot press spotlights -- emerged as a mentor on issues of faith and family.

But Smith appeared to have Washington on his mind during his emotional remarks after winning the Oscar for his work in "King Richard." Smith apologized to his peers for slap-punching Chris Rock after his jest about his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith's shaved head. The comic apparently didn't know she was suffering hair loss with Alopecia.

“In this moment, I am overwhelmed by what God is calling on me to do and be in this world. … I'm being called on in my life to love people and to protect people," said Smith, tears on his face. "I know that to do what we do, you gotta be able to take abuse, you gotta be able to have people talk crazy about you. In this business, you gotta be able to have people disrespecting you. And you gotta smile and pretend that that's OK."

When Washington offered quiet words of encouragement from offstage, Smith thanked him and added: "Denzel said a few minutes ago: At your highest moment, be careful -- that's when the devil comes for you."

This was not ordinary Oscars God-talk.

This drama triggered waves of social-media angst, with critics and millions of viewers debating who to blame for this crisis during an otherwise meandering Academy Awards show shaped by politics, pandemics, gender, race and low ratings.

Tyler Perry preaches tolerance to 'woke' congregation assembled for 2021 Oscar rites

It was just like one of those inspiring Tyler Perry movie scenes when a believer does the right thing and helps a struggler have a come-to-Jesus epiphany.

Perry was walking to his car after some Los Angeles production work when he was approached by homeless woman.

"I wish I had time to talk about judgment," said Tyler, after receiving the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award during the 93rd Academy Awards. "Anyway, I reach in my pocket and I'm about to give her the money and she says: 'Excuse me sir, do you have any shoes?'

"It stopped me cold because I remember being homeless and having one pair of shoes," he added. "So, I took her into the studio. … We're standing there [in] wardrobe and we find her these shoes and I help her put them on. I'm waiting for her to look up and all this time she's looking down. She finally looks up and she's got tears in her eyes. She says: 'Thank you Jesus. My feet are off the ground.' "

Perry, of course, is a movie mogul who has built a 330-acre studio facility in Atlanta used for all kinds of work, including parts of the Marvel epic "The Black Panther." He has created many profitable films of this own, such as "Diary of a Mad Black Woman," "The Family that Preys" and "Madea's Family Reunion," part of a series in which Perry, in drag, plays a pistol-packing, Bible-quoting matriarch at the heart of Black-family melodramas.

It was logical for Perry to receive the Jean Hersholt award, in part because of his rags-to-riches life and his efforts to help churches and nonprofits help the needy. At the same time, it's unlikely that he could ever win a regular Oscar statue since critics and Hollywood elites have long mocked his movies as soapy parables crafted to appeal to ordinary church folks -- Black and White. It isn't unusual, in the final act of Perry movies, for weeping sinners to pull their lives together during Gospel-music altar calls.

Thus, Perry's sermonette was an unusual twist in an Oscar rite packed with political messages and wins by films that few American moviegoers saw or even knew existed.