Jada Pinkett Smith

Jada Pinkett

Jada Pinkett Smith dropped out of the North Carolina School of Arts after just one year and headed to Hollywood. The plan paid off. Once there she made the right contacts and landed her first major role on the Cosby Show spin-off: A Different World (1991–93).

It wasn't until she played opposite Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor (1995) that Pinkett-Smith gained widespread recognition, however, which was enhanced with her marriage to Will Smith.

They first met on the set of Smith's series The Fresh Prince of Bel Air in 1990 and since than they become close friends for some time before Pinkett broke up with her boyfriend and Smith divorced his wife, Sheree Zampino.

Pinkett-Smith's other film critics include, Wooand Force Majeure in 1998.

Get the lowdown on the hottest looks of the season, selected by PEOPLE's style director
Ribbons are "the simplest way to dress up just about anything from a camisole to a plain black dress," says PEOPLE style director Susan Kaufman (Gwyneth Paltrow and Jada Pinkett Smith provide celeb examples). ...
People | Dec 16, 2004

DreamWorks Animation 2005
Ben Stiller ("Meet the Parents"), Chris Rock ("Chris Rock Never Scared"), David Schwimmer (TV's "Friends") and Jada Pinkett Smith ("Collateral") star as the voices of four zoo animals who hang up when they hear the call of the wild.
Alex the Lion (Stiller) is the king of the urban jungle, the main attraction at New York's Central Park Zoo. He and his best friends Marty the Zebra (Rock), Melman the Giraffe (Schwimmer) and Gloria the Hippo (Pinkett Smith) have lived their entire lives in blissful captivity, with regular meals provided and an admiring public to adore them.

Pinkett Smith enjoys her different roles
By Chris Kaltenbach, The Baltimore Sun | August 12, 2004

She's got it made on the home front, with two kids and a handsome husband who's one of the most beloved movie stars on the planet. She's got it made professionally, having just opened in a big summer movie alongside Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx. And she's got it made when it comes to ambition, having reached a point in her career that allows her to be selective when considering roles.

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Certainly, this is a good time to be Jada Pinkett Smith.

"Oh, it's a great time to be Jada right now," the 32-year-old actress says.

Most people would be inclined to agree. She and her husband, actor-rapper-force-of-nature Will Smith, are securely ensconced as one of Hollywood's premier power couples.

"Collateral," in which she has a small, but vital, role as a lawyer who catches the eye of Jamie Foxx's cabbie, recently opened nationwide to generally favorable reviews. She and Smith serve as executive producers of the UPN comedy series "All of Us," which they created and based on their family life. She's on the cover of this month's Redbook magazine, looking resplendent in pale green.

Not bad for a Baltimore gal raised in a neighborhood she once characterized as "full of desperate, uneducated people who were brought down and oppressed by their lack of opportunity. I look back and go: `How did I make it out of there?' "

When it comes to opportunities, Pinkett Smith has clearly made the most of hers, from her years as a student at the Baltimore School for the Arts to a two-year stint on NBC's "A Different World" to her breakout movie role as an inner-city girl dreaming of better things in 1994's "Jason's Lyric."

Pinkett Smith sounds genuinely happy about the way her life and career are going. Still, she's been part of the acting business long enough to know the pressures she'll continue to face as an actress, as a black actress, and as a black actress not willing to accept just any part that comes along.

"The thing about (acting) that people have to understand is, it's hard for women in general," she says by phone. "You have to ask Jodie Foster why she only does a role every five years. There are just no roles out there for women in general.

"I believe that, yes, there have been some changes, and slowly but surely, Hollywood has evolved," Pinkett Smith said. "But it's a slow process. We as women really need to step behind the scenes and do more writing, more producing, so that our voices are more authentic." But that's about as desperate as she is willing to sound. Unlike many less serene actors, Pinkett Smith is not actively seeking her next job. In her last five films ("Bamboozled," "Ali," "The Matrix Reloaded," "Matrix Revolutions," and "Collateral") she's been memorable in small roles; it's been a while since she's played a lead. And that, she insists, is a choice.

"I couldn't care less if they're (roles) of one line or a hundred," she says. "Pretty much the films that I get offered are very limiting, are very stereotypical. Most people are willing to take more of a chance on me doing something different in a supporting role."

All of which explains what she found so attractive about the role of Annie in "Collateral." In a touching, tenderly written scene toward the beginning of the film, she's picked up as a fare by Max (Foxx), who quickly sizes her up as someone he'd like to know better. Not just because she's attractive, but because he senses she's a person of substance who could use a little respite from her frenetic reality.

He's right, of course; she's a prosecuting attorney rarely able to let her guard down. But with Max, she does, setting up a relationship that will reap dividends for both of them before the film is over.

"Have you ever seen me do anything like that on screen before?" Pinkett Smith asks with enthusiasm. "For me, it's just having the opportunity to play such a well-rounded, well-developed character in such a short amount of time. That character was more developed than most starring female roles I've seen of late."

Even with "Collateral" under her belt, Pinkett Smith's schedule isn't exactly crammed with choice parts.

"I really haven't read anything that I'm interested in," she says, betraying not a hint of anxiety. "I see myself in a wonderful space, to have the luxury to do what I want to do and work when I feel like it."

Will Smith back in his July groove
LOS ANGELES - The man of summer is back. Since the mid-1990s, Will Smith practically has owned July, delivering hit after hit, his charm often enough to draw in audiences even for bad movies.

This July, Smith is trying something different. "I, Robot," loosely adapted from the short stories of Isaac Asimov, has more smarts than the usual Smith summer movie, preserving much of the philosophy that made sci-fi master Asimov's tales a blueprint for fiction that followed about human-machine interaction.

Yet "I, Robot" also delivers the brawn, action and wisecracking that audiences have come to expect from Smith this time of year in such flicks as "Independence Day," the "Men in Black" movies and last year's "Bad Boys II."

"I think when we look back in 50 years, the one discernible skill that Will Smith will have displayed is the ability to choose a summer movie. I think that is my skill more than anything," Smith, 35, said, recalling with a laugh how he's scored hits with movies that the critics trashed, such as "Independence Day."

"I am a serious summer- movie fan, and I know the type of movie that needs to be in July," said Smith. "I have a sense of what audiences want to see. What I hoped to develop with 'I, Robot' was the ability to push it forward."

The film incorporates the irony of a black cop accused of unreasoning prejudice against robots when Smith's character is told, "I suspect you just don't like their kind."

Accustomed to physical training for action roles, Smith said "I, Robot" also required the same level of dramatic preparation he put in for more serious films, such as "Ali," which earned him an Academy Award nomination for best actor.

While "Ali" was a box-office lemon, Smith's intense performance surprised people, especially considering the advance gripes from fans who thought the Fresh Prince of rap and TV-sitcom fame was a lightweight choice to play Muhammad Ali.

Along with picking the right summer movie, the element of surprise has been a consistent strength for Smith, who has confounded doubters with every career turn.

After his 1980s music success as part of the rap duo DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, he defied expectations by scoring with the TV hit "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air."

He encountered similar skepticism when he moved to the big screen but silenced critics with hit after hit. His moves into meatier drama in "The Legend of Bagger Vance" and "Ali" failed to bring in crowds, but his acting chops were a revelation for fans who had pigeon-holed him as an on-screen wiseguy.

"I view pigeonholes as good things, because that means you catch people blind," Smith said. "The one thing I learned in boxing is, the best thing that can happen is you get pigeonholed, that your opponent thinks you only throw two lefts then a right. Then you suddenly mix it up on him."

Come fall, Smith provides the lead voice to the undersea animated comedy "Shark Tale," about a small fry who becomes a big fish when he falsely takes credit for doing in a great white that was the son of the local mob boss. The voice cast includes Robert De Niro, Angelina Jolie and Jack Black.

Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, also is trying the cartoon game, providing the voice of a hippo for next year's animated adventure "Madagascar." The family flicks, along with the PG-13-rated "I, Robot," are welcome news to the couple's children, who were shut out of the couple's R-rated offerings last year, Will Smith in "Bad Boys II" and Jada Pinkett Smith in "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions."

"My son said to me, 'Daddy, I thought the reason that we put up with this was so we can see the stuff,' " Smith said. "So I said, 'OK, you're right.' Now I've got a couple in a row that the kids can see."

Early next year, Smith has his first romantic comedy lead with "Last First Kiss," in which he plays a "date doctor" who guarantees male clients that he can make women fall in love with them in three days.

Smith also has a new album due out around the holidays. A self-described techno-geek, he said the album will feature a song whose vocals and instrumentation were recorded and mixed with a port-able keyboard and a laptop keyboard, all on his own in a hotel room.

Meantime, Smith and his wife continue as executive producers on "All of Us," the TV sitcom loosely inspired by their domestic life as a couple building a second family after a divorce.

With success in movies, music and television, Smith keeps himself grounded with the thought that "there's something greater that I would like to achieve, there's something greater in store for me in the universe," he said.

"I don't view it as the end, as where I was going. I don't say, 'Whoa, I've succeeded,' " Smith said. "I still feel like I'm in the trenches. I love my life, I love where I am, but I don't feel like I have arrived. . . .

"I'll keep doing it all, as long as people want to hear it. Well, actually, I'll do it probably a little bit longer than people want to hear it."

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