Jada Pinkett Smith sorts out her life’s
priorities – her profession, family and spiritual
beliefs that keeps her going. By Luaine Lee
Switching from Earth Mother to Evil Diva is no big task for actress Jada Pinkett Smith. She’s spent her life learning to entertain. She started when she was three, her first part the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz.
Well she’s back to her nefarious ways as the crafty and seductive Fish Mooney in Fox’s Gotham, premiering September 22. Gotham is a prequel to DC Comics’ tale of Batman and the colourful villains that darkened his days.
While performing was an assiduous plan on her part — applied with the discipline of a Romanian gymnast — becoming a mother wasn’t.
Married for 18 years to actor Will Smith, she has a son, Jaden, 16, and a daughter, Willow, 13. “First of all, I never imagined I’d be married because marriage was never a thing that I ever really wanted to have,” she says.
“I never thought I’d meet someone worthy of dedicating my life to. Then, at the same time, having a baby on the way. It was like a whole transition. It was mind blowing,” she says, perched on the edge of a grey couch in a coffee bar here in Pasadena, California.
“Literally all the dreams and aspirations and what I thought my life was going to be changed. I had to build new dreams and have new aspirations. I look at Will now and I think it was probably good we had no idea what we were taking on.”
Her most difficult time was making that leap, she says. “My life all changed at once. And then having a certain amount of success that came with being married, and all the endeavours that Will and I took on, it was a lot to have at one time — the transition to ‘I’m a wife. I’m no longer single. Oh, God, I’ve got this other being I have to take care of who’s on my hip 24/7. Oh, no. I still have this commitment to this movie. Oh, no. I need to move over here to be with my husband because after I do that, he’s doing this.’ It was a lot of disruption.” She pauses. “Then you just grow.”
Adding to those changes was what she calls her “bonus” child, Trey, Will’s 21-year-old son by his first marriage. “It’s great when you can have a close relationship to a child that doesn’t necessarily see you as an immediate parent, but has trust in you as one,” says Smith, gesturing with her long, lacquered nails.
“Sometimes it’s communication that a bonus parent can have with a bonus child that’s difficult for parents to have with their children, because you really can be a parental friend. There’s a certain kind of relationship that you can have that has a different kind of closeness. So Trey is like my buddy. We have a ritual that we do every day,” she says.
“He’s moved out, but he’s right down the street from us. He comes to the house and he eats, and I make sure that I’m there sitting at the table when he comes, and that’s our time together. We spend, like, two hours a day. He just comes and downloads to me what his night was, what his day has been while he’s eating. And that’s our time.”
Pinkett-Smith, 43, confesses that she practices other rituals that help her through trying times. “I believe there’s a higher power for sure, no doubt,” she nods. “I know that this is not all me — there’s no way. I do believe there’s a power greater than myself that is surely watching. We always keep in mind that for those of us who have that kind of faith and believe there’s a power greater than us, we have that faith, but at the same time, we have to make sure we’re doing our part.
“So that means if there’s a circumstance in my life that I’m having difficulty with, sometimes I go into stillness so that I can hear or feel what needs to be done.”
She says the stillness can be meditation or prayer, or a hike in the mountains. “Or going out with a girlfriend and talking in a place of solitude and nature. It comes in different ways. When I talk about stillness, it’s just taking time to be more internal than external.”
She learned that, she says, from her father, whom she rarely saw. “I didn’t spend a whole lot of time with my father, but he was a seeker, a seeker of truth, a seeker of a better way of doing things. Even though he might not always have succeeded, he sought it. So I took a lot of notes of how he sought. He’d go on what we’d call ‘word diets’ when he wouldn’t speak for two weeks. He’d be in your presence, but he wouldn’t speak, but he would just listen. I do that. I usually have three days of silence when there’s a passing, when somebody dies. That’s kind of my ritual in paying honour to one’s life and just going inside with that quiet and that peace. And sometimes when I just need that stillness, when I need time to collect myself, I just stop talking.”
She says the children love it, “but they consider it to be my ‘quirky rituals. But I think what’s funny is when they grow older, there’ll be rituals that they take on too. I remember looking at my father and going, ‘That’s some crazy stuff.’ He’d have a miniature white board on his chest, and if it was really something you needed answered, he’d just write the answer down. If I said, ‘Hey, you want water or juice.’ ‘Water.’ He’d write it down. He was a character.” — MCT
Kristen Stewart
finds acting isolating
Actress Kristen Stewart finds her job incredibly isolating because people around her feel that they are not allowed to talk to her. Contactmusic.com reports that she shared her views on the subject with Independent’s Radar magazine. “Actors become super-isolated. Again, I’m not complaining about it, it’s just that you have a very unique perspective on things because people don’t talk to you, they feel like they are not allowed to come up to you and say hi,” said the Twilight actress. — IANS
Single Lopez not ready to mingle
Post her breakup with Casper Smart, singer-actress Jennifer Lopez, who has been in relationships throughout her life, is planning to remain single. The Latin star says she wants to “chill” and “know” herself.
The mother of two shared her views on The Meredith Vieira Show Monday, reports contactmusic.com. “I’m just being on my own. I feel like I need that right now. I’ve been in relationships kind of back to back my whole life and I just needed time,” she said. “I need time to just chill and just know me and enjoy my kids and actually make time for other friends instead of just the relationship thing,” she added. — IANS
CANDID: Jada Pinkett Smith
