Jada Pinkett Smith: "I hit the jackpot with that one" The always-bubbly Jada Pinkett Smith, 40, returns to her role in Madagascar as Gloria in this award-winning animated franchise. As wife of Will Smith, and mother of their two children, actor Jaden, 11, who starred in Karate Kid, and daughter, Willow, 11, a recording artist and star of the upcoming version of Annie, their family is a powerful dynasty in Hollywood. Today at the Cannes Film Festival, she talks about raising her family in the spotlight, being married to the irrepressible Will Smith, and her upcoming and diverse projects. Q: So since it’s the third film in the franchise, is Gloria becoming more like you or vice versa? JPS: I think for me, I’m probably as animated as Gloria, but I think there are a lot of differences between she and I, definitely. She’s ten times my size. (laughs) But I feel like I know her very well now, yeah very well. Q: Are you surprised it’s come to a third film now, did you think when you started out that… JPS: No, I had no idea when we started out that we would have three but I think it’s awesome. Q: Why isn’t your lovely husband here in Cannes? JPS: Oh my husband….(laughs) if you go to the internet, you’ll see that he’s doing quite a tour. He’s promoting Men in Black. He’s all over the place, so he’s actually working right now. But I have my daughter, Willow, here with me, so she’s keeping me company. It’s just the scheduling, we are all in different places and we are all very busy. Q: So what are you doing at the moment? Your other work? JPS: I’ve got a lot going on. I’m producing a talk show for Queen Latifah, which I am very excited about. Really, really excited about. It’s called “The Queen Latifah Show.” That’s original name right? (laughs) … Q: Is she a good friend of yours? JPS: Yes she is. Q: So how did that come about? JPS: It was actually an idea that we brought to her that she was ready for. So we are actually about ready to shoot that pilot but in June, but I just did a special for Mother’s Day called “Red Table Talks”, and I’m in the midst right now of figuring out that deal. I’ve got a couple of offers to turn that into an International television show, so I’m very excited about that, and I’m also producing my daughter’s movie, Annie. We are doing a remake of Annie with her, which is going to be crazy. Q: How old is she now? JPS: She’s eleven. Q: Is there anybody who’s not going to be acting in the family? JPS: (laughs) No. We are an entertainment family. That’s just the deal. Q: How far along is the Annie remake? Do you have a director or cast in mind? JPS: You know what, Willow will be starring, (laughs) and we just got a new writer that we are in negotiations to have come on to re-write the script. And so we hope to have that up and going next year. Q: And are you including the songs from the original? JPS: Well, the songs will be original, but remade in a more modern fashion. So if you know Jay-Z’s “Hard Knock Life”, so yeah, we will be having a little bit of that version, Jay-Z is also going to be partnering with us on that. And a couple of movie offers that I’m trying to figure out right now, what I’m going to do with that, doing to try to juggle with everything going on everywhere else, but yeah, it’s a very busy world I live in right now. Q: You seem to be becoming a mogul for African-American talent. JPS: A mogul? Well, (laughter) listen, I come from a very creative family, and we like to just create projects and create opportunities really for everybody, but yeah, we just keep creating. Create, create, create. Q: And a lot of it is just creating opportunities for African-American people. JPS: We have a lot of projects that we create for people of color in general. And that is for us important, but not exclusive. We like to create for everyone. For everybody. So that’s as important, but everyone being everyone, including minorities. So producing wise, we have a lot of minorities that produce projects and we have a lot of minorities that write for us as well, which is often times very difficult to break into in Hollywood. Q: Are you including women in that? JPS: Oh, trust me, I have a lot of women. I actually just finished a project with Salma Hayek, her directing me in a project that will be coming out in June, and so I make sure definitely that I create for women, with women. Very often and producing too. Q: Would you say that women have more power today in Hollywood? Have you seen an evolution? JPS: I’ve definitely seen an evolution. Definitely. I mean even for the Queen Latifah Show, our high executives are women (laughs) on that particular show. And I’m seeing a lot of women, I mean, look at Amy Pascal, at Sony. There are a lot of us, and there’s still a lot of work to do, but we are making waves definitely, for sure. Q: How do you keep things real for your kids given that they’re actors from such an early age? A lot of actors will say that they don’t want their kids to act until they’re older. So how do you keep life normal for them? JPS: What’s normal? That’s the question. But if the question is to give them a kind of a sense of the life of the majority, I think one of the things that we do that’s really important is all of the charity work that we do. Right now, Willow and I are involved in, even though it’s a pretty heavy subject matter, human trafficking. And we are traveling around the world and we are actually going to different Unicef facilities that are dealing with human trafficking victims. And when you expose your kids to things like that, it gives them a sense of reality, and it gives them a sense of purpose and it gives them a sense of purpose outside of themselves. A responsibility that sometimes the real question might be how do you keep someone from being ultra-narcissistic? When at such a young age, we believe that the world revolves around us anyway, and so kind of that extroversion comes from when you put them and show them different situations and circumstances that are not optimum and where their efforts could be needed to make the situation better. And I know for my daughter, it was very impactful, and she wants to lend herself for those girls, the average age of a child that’s trafficked, is between ten and eleven years old. And she couldn’t believe, so for her, her passion right now is to lend a voice for those young girls, who are unheard. And so things like that, for me with my kids, and that’s how I was brought up, because my grandmother was a community activist, and so we had no choice, we had to be in the community making things happen. So I’ve kind of kept that particular idea, along with my kids and my family. So I think for them it’s been very helpful because it kind of takes them out of the Hollywood bubble, and puts them into something that is real and something they can give their passion and their efforts to that has nothing to do with them. But has everything do to with someone else. So it kind of balances that. Q: What are the positives and negatives being married to Will Smith? JPS: (laughs) There are no negatives. There are absolutely no negatives. I find it’s such a blessing to have a partner like him, I swear, I tell you, Will has to be one of the most outstanding fathers. I can’t tell you how important it is, I mean, not only just loving him and him being my husband, but when I look at how he loves his children, I just go, thank you, I made such a good. You could have a man that loves you, you really can, you could have a man that adores you, but the fact that I have a man that adores me and is a good father, woo, I hit the jackpot with that one. (laughs) Q: But you have to share him with the whole planet. Is that a problem? JPS: You know what, I’m going to tell you something that’s interesting about that. I’ve matured. I have to tell you, when I was young, I didn’t like that too much. And not in the sense of like, it doesn’t have anything to do with jealousy or other women or anything like that, it didn’t have anything to do with that, but the fact of every time you go to a restaurant, you can’t have an intimate dinner with your man at the restaurant, cause there’s people all the time. But I’ve learned that in my maturity, I’ve learned to take pleasure in sharing him with the world. And I’ve learned to take pleasure in the magic that he offers people. He brings so much joy and happiness to people, and I can’t be selfish in the fact of trying to hoard that, you can’t. He’s a lot of man. And part of being in a partnership is that you have to support the spirit in which you are in partnership with. You cannot get into a partnership and try to make that partnership smaller. And actually, being in a partnership like that has forced me to become bigger, and to grow, and step up to that particular challenge of being enough and having the energy that’s needed for him to do all the wonderful things that this man does in the world. And to allow him to grow and be bigger and become and become all that he’s meant to be on this planet, and vice versa, and so you realize that once you learn how to give it, then you receive it. Q: Is he as funny at home? JPS: Heck yeah. Funnier. It drives me crazy sometimes. (laughs) He’s such a jokester, but I had to realize too, like that used to drive me crazy, like, I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you right now, and what I’ve realized about that, man, as much as I laugh with him, I’ve just learned to enjoy that. I’ve learned not to be so serious all the time, that you can actually talk about things and it doesn’t have to be serious. Yes, you can joke and play, and get through stuff, and so I’ve actually learned that to be a blessing and like all the comedy and humor that he brings into the house. I mean, he’s literally the guy, that if he walks out of a room before you do, he’s around the corner waiting to jump out and scare you. (laughs) I mean that’s who he is, but he’s a lot of fun. And that’s what it is every day, all day long. Q: So what’s the association with Scientology, you are not Scientologists? JPS: No, we are not Scientologists. /Viva Press http://ph.omg.yahoo....-003000581.html
