Jada/Fam/Misc

[Ale]

On the Set of Jada Pinkett Smith's New Show

Jada Pinkett Smith is heading to TV, and ET paid her a visit on the set of her new show.

Jada is starring in and executive producing "Hawthorne," a new drama series for TNT. In the show, Jada plays Christina Hawthorne, a recently widowed nurse who fights for her patients as Chief Nursing Officer at Richmond Trinity Hospital. At home, she also deals with the trials and tribulations of raising her rebellious teenage daughter Camille (Hannah Hodson). Michael Vartan of "Alias" fame co-stars as the hospital's Chief of Surgery.

"I thought it was interesting to tell the stories from the nurses' point of view because it's the nurses that spend most of the time with the patients," Jada explains. "The doctors come in and they're there for about 15 minutes, but really it's the nurses that work the long shifts that are there for the patients for pretty much their stay at the hospital. They're the ones that have to wear all the different hats. Whatever the patient needs at that particular time they're there to facilitate that."

You can catch "Hawthorne" when it premieres on TNT on Tuesday, June 16 at 9 p.m.

VIDEO!

http://www.etonline.com/news/2009/06/74878/index.html

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[Sandy]

Thanks!

Her daughter in the show is named like Willow's middle name. ;-)

[Ale]

'HawthoRNe' Press Conference

http://www.daemonstv.com/2009/06/06/jada-pinkett-smith-michael-vartan-from-hawthorne-pictures/

Video: Guy Stalking Will & Jada

LOL! Edited November 5, 2013 by Ale

[Jazzy Julie]

oh no they've got a male Loretta, just keep walking fast.

[MissAshley]

I love how he put stalking in the description. lol.

Willow at the "Imagine That" premiere

[MissAshley]

Hawthorne's Michael Vartan on Jada Pinkett Smith: "She's Really a Goofball"

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/watch_with_kristin/b128134_hawthornes_michael_vartan_on_jada.html?utm_source=eonline&utm_medium=rssfeeds&utm_campaign=rss_kristin

press/interviews

Edited June 9, 2009 by MissAshley

[MissAshley]

Will is so goofy.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/201743

interview w/Jada's Mom

When this RN Talks, Does her Daughter Listen?

http://www.scrubsmag.com/articles/work/career/nurse-behind-scenes-hawthorne

Scrubbing In: Hard Work Pays Off For Jada Pinkett Smith

http://www.bvbuzz.com/2009/06/11/scrubbing-in-hard-work-pays-off-for-jada-pinkett-smith/

Edited June 12, 2009 by MissAshley

[Ale]

Haha! Thanks for all this Ash. It was a great read! ;)

I liked this part:

Scrubs: Do you find yourself playing nurse in real life?
Jones: I sometimes have to around the house with Jada and Will's kids. There are always incidents. Here's a secret: Jada doesn't do well with blood at all. There have been times over the years where the children have had accidents. Thank goodness for Will...he handles those kinds of things when I'm not there.

and also this one:

"The great thing is that my kids do know I'm in town," she began. "I sat down with my kids and my husband and I really asked their permission. I said listen, there's this show I'd love to do and there'll be three months that you may not see mommy a lot. They were looking at me like, 'Really? What does that mean?' I was like, I may not be home when you wake up and I might not see you when you go to sleep at night, but you'll have me during the weekends and there might be a day during the week where you'll have me once again. So they're thinking about it and they're like, 'Alright, I think we can live with that for three months.' Will's like, 'I don't know if I can live with that for three months.'"

One thing though: in this picture, the description says:



Oscar winner Will Smith and Jawn Murray celebrate the premiere of Jada Pinkett Smith's TV series 'HawthoRNe' at the SLS hotel in Los Angeles.

Didn't know Will has won an Oscar, LOL!

Plus, we had to post this:

What about her husband? Will he make a cameo as well?

"Will has come on the show. He's an extra on one of the episodes. See if you can catch him. He does a drive by. We could hardly afford that. It was a very costly walk by," she closed.

More 'HawthoRNe Pictures!

http://backseatcuddler.com/2009/06/11/jada-pinkett-smith-hawthorne-looks-fab-photos/

Edited November 5, 2013 by Ale

[Ale]

Another article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/arts/television/14roch.html

[VIsqo]

Jada looks soo full of life!

[Ale]

And more articles...

Jada Pinkett Smith returns to the tube on TNT

She's the wife of Will Smith, the world's most popular movie star and a man whose net worth is about $220 million, but that's no automatic ticket to ride for Jada Pinkett Smith.

"It's funny," the actress said. "You'd think that it would help my career in ways that it doesn't. It's hindered it because, in the position I'm in, I don't need anything. I don't need the work, so I'm not at anybody's mercy. That's definitely a position of power that not everyone wants to deal with.

"And there's the pressure. If I'm there, that means Will will be there. Not everybody wants to deal with that all the time either."

Pinkett Smith is speaking by telephone from a makeup chair on the Los Angeles set of "Hawthorne," the new TNT series in which she stars as the title character, the chief nursing officer of a hospital in Richmond, Va.

It has been almost 20 years since Pinkett Smith, now 37, came to Hollywood as an 18-year-old and was quickly cast as a college freshman on the television sitcom "A Different World" (1991-1993). But it was her turn opposite several versions of Eddie Murphy in "The Nutty Professor" (1996) that put the young actress on Tinseltown radar screens.

Of West Indian, Creole and Portuguese-Jewish descent, the Baltimore native speaks with a slight drawl and sounds easygoing. But beneath the surface charm, the 5-foot-tall actress is, by her own account, nobody to mess with.

"If I had been given a bigger body," she said, "I might have had more problems and issues. But, because I'm small, I think people can take doses of me a bit easier. I have huge energy. I'm relentless, I don't take no for an answer. When I really, really want to get something done, very rarely does it not happen."

If you've seen Pinkett Smith in the movies or on television and she didn't seem that short, it's because most of the time she's perched on 4-inch platform heels. For "Hawthorne," in the interest of realism, Pinkett Smith tones that down to 31/2 inches.

"I don't wear 4-inch heels on the show because I'm walking through a hospital all day," she said. "They can't be too high!"

She has acted in some 25 films, including "The Matrix Reloaded" (2003), "The Matrix Revolutions" (2003), "Collateral" (2004) and "The Women" (2008). One of her most ironic gigs, given her diminutive size, was as the voice for Gloria the hippopotamus in "Madagascar" (2005) and "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa" (2008).

Lately, however, Pinkett Smith has been as active behind the scenes as she has onscreen. She wrote, directed and appeared in "The Human Contract," about a troubled business executive (Jason Clarke). She also served as executive producer for "The Secret Life of Bees" (2008), a drama with Dakota Fanning and Queen Latifah.

She and Smith are co-producing another feature, which will star their 10-year-old son, Jaden, who made his film debut with a featured role as the son of Smith's character in "The Pursuit of Happyness" (2006).

Jaden's budding acting career and Pinkett Smith's commitment to "Hawthorne" have delayed her plans to take her heavy-metal band, Wicked Wisdom, back on the road.

"But I have a dear passion for that music," she said. "We're going to put up some videos on our Myspace page."

Her primary professional focus, however, is "Hawthorne." As the willful Christina Hawthorne R.N., Pinkett Smith takes her first lead role in a television series and also dons the mantle of executive producer. Hawthorne heads a group of nurses at a chaotic urban hospital, putting out one fire after another while mourning her husband's recent death and butting heads with her rebellious daughter and her controlling mother-in-law.

"Christina thinks she can be all things to all people," Pinkett Smith said, "but that's an idea that's going to bite her."

The character is modeled upon her own mother, a registered nurse who read the pilot script when Pinkett Smith was debating taking on the series.

"She said, 'You better do this,' " the actress recalled. "My mom is an uber-problem-solver. There's nothing she can't fix, to a certain degree."

Still working as a nurse, Adrienne Banfield serves as a "private consultant" to her daughter on "Hawthorne," as well as helping out with her grandkids, 8-year-old Willow, Jaden and 16-year-old Trey, Smith's son by a previous marriage.

The Smiths usually try to alternate projects, so that one parent can be at home with the children.

"Like right now," Pinkett Smith said. "Will is not working, while I am."

The three children attend the New Village Leadership Academy, which the Smiths co-founded in the Los Angeles suburb of Calabasas, Calif. Some have characterized the academy as a religious school whose teaching methods are based on principles of Scientology, but Pinkett Smith denies that.

"It's not true," she said. "I have absolutely nothing against Scientology, but it's not a Scientology school. It's a purely secular school. We use Study Tech, which is a philosophy of teaching, but it's not Scientology."

According to a Church of Scientology Web site, Study Technology, aka Study Tech, is an approach to teaching developed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and "first described in a series of 1964 lectures at the Scientology training academy" in England. Study Tech, it says, is "used throughout Scientology in all churches and it is widely used outside the church in schools and businesses."

Not that Pinkett Smith sees herself as an educator. Since she was 3, the actress says, she has known that she wanted to be a performer.

"I played the Wicked Witch in 'The Wizard of Oz,' and that was pretty much it," she said. "I just knew then that was what I wanted to do. My mother knew that was what I was born to do, so she always pushed me to make it happen."

She first met Smith when, at 19, she auditioned to play his girlfriend on the hit sitcom "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" (1990-1996). She didn't get the part, since the producers deemed her too short to be paired with the 6-foot-2-inch Smith, but she got the guy eventually.

"Actually, we didn't start dating until years later," Pinkett Smith said. "We were friends for many, many years."

In 1997 they married, and for 12 years their marriage has been a model of stability amid the Hollywood tornado.

What's their secret?

"Spirituality and friendship," she said. "You have to be best friends. You've got to want to be with this person all day long, every day if necessary. You need to enjoy each other outside of sex and have great conversations and aim for the goals you've agreed on."

It's hard to say how Pinkett Smith's career might have gone if she hadn't married a superstar the year after "The Nutty Professor," her breakthrough film. The only thing she's sure of is that it would have been much different.

"I work because I love what I do," she said, "but the politics of the game get in the way. Some people think that I'm not interested in working: 'Why would she want to work? She doesn't have to.' But I've learned to work all the downsides to my advantage.

"The upside is that I know, when people come knocking on my door, that it's a very serious thing and that they really, really want me," Pinkett Smith said. "That's good. It weeds out a lot of crap."

http://www.readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=142873

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Pinkett-Smith: 'I'm Too Short to Play Mrs. Obama'

"Hawthorne" star Jada Pinkett-Smith tells "Extra" she'd love to play Michelle Obama on the big screen, but says she'd have to grow a few inches!

Jada confesses, "Michelle is tall. I'm way too short. If I felt like I could represent her in a way that I feel like she should be represented, I absolutely would." Pinkett-Smith says whoever plays her "has to be her height. I'm like 4'11". It's not me."

This summer the Pinkett-Smith family is going to Beijing for over two months! Jada tells "Extra," "Will and I are producing our son's movie, 'Kung Fu Kid.'" The family flick is a remake of the classic "Karate Kid" and stars Jayden Smith, Jackie Chan and Taraji P. Henson.

http://extratv.warnerbros.com/2009/06/pinkett-smith_im_too_short_to.php

Edited June 13, 2009 by Ale

[Romano338]

Jada looks soo full of life!

Yeah she looks... like her husband !

They really fit each other! (I don't know if we can use the word "fit" for peeople?)

[Ale]

More interviews:

http://www.movieweb.com/news/NElVVmlllxREpo

[MissAshley]

I was reading those articles last night and this stuck out to me for some reason:

Of West Indian, Creole and Portuguese-Jewish descent I mean, you think you know somebody, lol. The full of life comment made me laugh don't know why though, you seem so shocked Visqo.

Edited June 13, 2009 by MissAshley

[MissAshley]

https://twitter.com/jadapsmith

http://www.facebook.com/jadapinkettsmith