In Step With Jada Pinkett Smith

[Ale]

By James Brady

Publication Date: 10/19/2008

She’s married to one of the sexiest, wealthiest men in movies, and yet actress Jada Pinkett Smith was having breakfast coffee with me in her Park Avenue hotel suite.

The petite (only 5 feet tall) wife of Will Smith, mother of two of his three kids, was in New York to promote her latest film, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, an animated adventure in which she reprises her voice role as Gloria the Hippo. In the film, due out Nov. 9, her 7-year-old daughter, Willow, provides the voice of the young Gloria. Will and Jada’s 10-year-old son, Jaden, also has been acting in movies. Did they encourage him?

“It was something he wanted to do,” Jada said. “Will was complaining that he was having difficulty casting a boy in one of his films [The Pursuit of Happyness], and Jaden said, ‘I could play that role.’ Will said, ‘You’d have to audition.’ So he did and got the role, and now he’s done two movies.” So now four Smiths are pulling down Hollywood paychecks.

Will has another son, Trey, from a previous marriage, so I asked Jada, “Are you now his stepmother?” “No,” she said. “I’m his bonus mother. He’s 16 and a football star in school.”

And what is Will up to? “He’s at home this week doing the daddy thing,” said Jada. So he’s a good dad?

“He’s a great daddy,” she said. And although Jada and Will have worked together on several film projects, she declared earnestly, “Our biggest production is the kids.”

In addition to Madagascar, Jada starred with Annette Bening and Meg Ryan in a big remake of The Women, which opened last month. But her current passion is a new film, a mystery called The Human Contract.

“I wrote the original screenplay, produced, directed, and played a role,” she said. “Directing is the new direction for me. There are so few good roles for women—I want to create some.”

I’d read that she had asked her husband to direct her scenes in the film. True? “Yes, I asked him to have my back,” she replied. Does that mean the family that directs together stays together?

“No,” replied Jada with a wicked grin. “Believe me, it’s more like the family that directs together has to work hard to stay together.”

Brady's Bits

When I met Jada, two husky, dark-suited young men shepherded me into and out of elevators and sat outside the hotel suite until I left. You get an appreciation that the Smith family is doing pretty well and is securely looked after —a sort of movieland aristocracy. How did she and Will first meet? “I was 19 and auditioning for the role of his girlfriend on Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” she said. “He was trying to be flirty with me, and I told him to cool it.” Jada did not get the role. “I kept a grudge,” she said. “I think I may have been the only black actress in Hollywood who was never on Fresh Prince. Will eventually asked me to come on, but I said no. He got me eventually—but not the actress.”

Personal

Born Sept. 18, 1971, in Baltimore, Md. Married to actor Will Smith since 1997. Two children: Jaden, 10, and Willow, 7.

Why You Know Her

Jada got her start on the Cosby spin-off A Different World, but her breakthrough was the Eddie Murphy film The Nutty Professor. She also starred in two Matrix movies.

What You Don't Know

Jada was Miss Maryland in 1988. When not acting, she sings with the hard rock/metal band Wicked Wisdom. The songwriter/rapper Tupac Shakur was a former classmate and close friend until his death in 1996.

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