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 future roles.
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. “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, and I’m a very blessed girl.”
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, took the top spot at the box office last weekend. She and Smith serve as executive producers of the UPN comedy “All of Us.” She’s on the cover of this month’s Redbook magazine, looking resplendent in pale green.
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.”
“The thing about [acting] that people have to understand is, it’s hard for women in general,” she says. “You have to ask Jodie Foster why she only does a role very five years. There are just no roles out there for women in general.”
Unlike many less serene actors, Pinkett Smith is not actively seeking her next job, anxiously waiting for the phone to ring and for her agent to say she’s landed a plum role in some potential blockbuster. In her last five films (Spike Lee’s “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.”
“That’s not a problem for me, as long as I can continue to do great work, and work with great people, and work with great directors,” she says.
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale ([email protected]) and Curt Wagner ([email protected])