LOS ANGELES — Actress Jada Pinkett Smith gets a
10-minute break while the production crew of her TNT series “HawthoRNe”
resets the lights inside a small house staged for a party scene.
During the short break, Smith deals with five
different matters, including talking about the third season of the cable
series. She plays tough and tireless Chief Nursing Officer Christina
Hawthorne, whose personal life is as chaotic as an emergency room on New
Year’s Eve.
This hectic schedule comes from Smith being both star
and executive producer of the series, dealing with the budding careers
of her children, trying to keep her own musical passions going and doing
charity work while being a wife and mom.
She has her mother to thank inspiring the TV role and
showing her how to handle so many different responsibilities. Smith
watched her mother work long, hard hours as a single mom and inner-city
nurse in Baltimore.
“I’m channeling a lot of her. She would bring her
work home because she was so passionate about what she was doing,” Smith
says. “I remember how hard she worked. How organized and determined she
was.”
Smith’s passion right now is “HawthoRNe.” She’s determined to make the third season completely different than the first two.
“This season is the season where I’m doing anything I
want to do,” Smith says. “Last season, and the season before, I didn’t.
This season we are going to be much edgier.
“The show’s going to be a lot more realistic as far
as the journeys the characters go through in their lives, especially
working in a hospital where you are dealing with life and death. That
cranks up the drama and this season we are really going to go for it.”
Smith wants more drama, fire and passion this year —
particularly through her work with Michael Vartan, who plays Dr. Tom
Wakefield, the father of her unborn baby, and new cast member Marc
Anthony as Detective Nick Renata, who has feelings for Hawthorne.
The third season changes are the result of Smith realizing TV audiences and moviegoers want disparate things.
“There’s a big difference in what you will venture
out of your home to see and what you will allow come into your home,”
Smith says. “Television’s a much more intimate situation.”
Being able to change directions quickly is a benefit
of the 10-episode seasons for the cable show. Smith jokes there’s no way
she could handle all the demands of being both the star and executive
producer for more than 10 shows.
The short season also gives her time for her family.
As soon as all of the third season is filmed, Smith will travel with her
son, Jaden, so he can shoot a movie. Before the third season filming
started, Smith was on the road with her daughter, Willow, the youngest
member of the Smith family, who has a musical career.
The responsibilities mean Smith has had to put a part
of her career on hold. Despite being pushed by her husband, Will Smith,
to schedule some performance dates, Smith hasn’t had many openings to
perform with her band Wicked Wisdom. And her movie career — except for
voice work in animated films like “Madagascar” — has been quiet.
“Will and I would like to do something together but
he has to shoot ‘Men in Black.’ Maybe we will be able to do something
after that,” Smith says as she’s called back to work.
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HAWTHORNE
10 p.m. EDT Tuesday
TNT
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