Watch Jada Pinkett Smith Online

Pinkett Smith, named after her mother's favorite soap opera actress, Jada Rowlands, was born in Baltimore, Maryland to Adrienne Banfield-Jones (nee Banfield), the head nurse of an inner-city clinic in Baltimore, and Robsol Pinkett, Jr., who runs a construction company. Banfield-Jones became pregnant with Pinkett Smith when she was in high school and after a few months of marriage, her parents divorced. Her mother continued to raise Pinkett Smith in Baltimore with the help of Pinkett Smith's grandmother, Marion Banfield, who passed away when Pinkett Smith was 14-years-old.

Marion Banfield, a social worker at the time, saw her granddaughter's passion for the performing arts and encouraged her by enrolling Pinkett Smith in piano, tap dance, and ballet lessons while Banfield-Jones escorted Pinkett Smith to various auditions, rehearsals, and performances around town. Pinkett Smith has said: "My mother has always been very supportive and believed in my dreams and endeavors - even to this day she helps me out when I'm filming and traveling."

Pinkett Smith remains close to her mother, stating, "A mother and daughter's relationship is usually the most honest, and we are so close," when she participated as the maid of honor in Banfield-Jones' marriage to her current husband, telecommunications executive Paul Jones, in 1998. She has also shown great admiration for her grandmother, commenting, "My grandmother was a doer who wanted to create a better community and add beauty to the world."

Pinkett Smith majored in dance and theatre at the Baltimore School for the Arts, graduating in 1989. She then proceeded in furthering her education at the North Carolina School of the Arts, but dropped out after a year to move to Los Angeles, California to pursue a career in acting. Honored with the highest level of membership, Pinkett Smith is an honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., the first Greek-lettered sorority established and incorporated by African American women.

Shortly after arriving in Los Angeles, Pinkett Smith's first step toward furthering her acting career was applying for the choreographer position for the television series In Living Color, a show created by actor Keenan Ivory Wayans. Although she failed to get the job, Wayans helped her find an acting agent and the two became close friends.

Pinkett Smith began her acting career in 1990, when she starred in a television pilot for supernatural drama Moe's World. Although the pilot was never aired, Pinkett Smith moved on to guest roles in television shows such as True Colors (1990), Doogie Howser, M.D. (1991), and 21 Jump Street (1991). In 1991, she auditioned for a role on actor/comedian Bill Cosby's NBC television sitcom A Different World, as college freshman Lena James, a character that was based on Pinkett Smith's own style and character. She continued to play the role for two years before the show ended in 1993.

Pinkett Smith made her feature film debut in 1993 in the critically-acclaimed drama film Menace II Society, as Ronnie, a single young mother trying to survive in Watts, California. She then moved on to romance films, reuniting with her Menace II Society co-star Larenz Tate, to star in The Inkwell (1994) as Tate's love interest, Lauren Kelly. The film received poor reviews, with Entertainment Weekly deeming it "bogus". She continued on to portray Lyric in another romance film, Jason's Lyric (1994).

In 1994, Pinkett Smith finally received her chance to work with Wayans in the action/comedy A Low Down Dirty Shame. "He busted my ass," Pinkett Smith exclaimed to Entertainment Weekly. "I had to read twice, no three times, for him!" She described her character, Peaches, as "raw" with "major attitude". Pinkett Smith's acting garnered her rave reviews, with The New York Times labeling her performance: "Ms. Pinkett, whose performance is as sassy and sizzling as a Salt-n-Pepa recording, walks away with the movie."

Following a role in Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight (1995), she starred in several films the following year. The 1996 remake of The Nutty Professor put her opposite actor/comedian Eddie Murphy and was her biggest box office film to date, raking in over $25 million in its first weekend and opening in over 2,000 theaters. She subsequently landed a role in the film If These Walls Could Talk (1996), as Patti. Co-directed by Cher, produced by Demi Moore, and co-starring Cher, Moore, and Sissy Spacek, the made for television movie earned several Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations and gained Pinkett Smith even more exposure.

Set It Off (1996), a crime drama film about four women who turn to bank robberies to help escape from their poverty-stricken lives, really helped to put Pinkett Smith on the map. Co-starring Queen Latifah, Vivica A. Fox, and Kimberly Elise, Pinkett Smith portrayed Lida "Stony" Newsom, a young woman struggling to care for her younger brother after the death of their parents, in an effort to send him to college. Her acting in the film prompted the San Francisco Chronicle to deem her as "the one to watch".

Pinkett Smith continued to take on roles throughout the late 1990s, including the lending of her voice to the Japanese anime Princess Mononoke (1997), a cameo in Scream 2 (1997), a supporting role in Return to Paradise (1998), and starring roles in the comedy film Woo (1998) and the short film Blossoms and Veils (1998), written and directed by Grey's Anatomy creater Shonda Rhimes.

In 2000, Pinkett Smith was cast in Spike Lee's film Bamboozled (2000), as Sloan Hopkins, a personal assistant to the main character portrayed by Damon Wayans. Although the film was met with mediocre reviews, this did not stop it from winning the Freedom of Expression Award by the National Board of Review. She went on to star in the comedy film Kingdom Come (2001) with Whoopi Goldberg. Probably her best known roles to date, Pinkett Smith went directly to Australia after filming her scenes in Ali to play the part of human rebel Niobe in the films The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003), sequels to the hit The Matrix (1999). Pinkett Smith had met the directors, The Wachowski Brothers, several times before they had begun to film The Matrix and they all formed a close bond. The character was eventually written, specifically, with Pinkett Smith in mind. The role threw Pinkett Smith into the spotlight, as the The Matrix already had a cult following of fans, and the sequels garnished over $91 million and $48 million in their opening weekends, respectively. Her acting in The Matrix Revolutions earned her another nomination for the Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture.

In 2004, Pinkett Smith reunited with director Michael Mann, whom she had previously worked with on Ali, when she was cast as United States Department of Justice prosecutor, Annie Farrell, in the thriller film Collateral, co-starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx. Pinkett Smith told Lena Aburdene of The Cinema Source: "Michael Mann was telling me, 'Jada, you have 15 minutes to make a substantial connection with Jamie Foxx to hold the audience until the end of the movie. People have got to care about you or the movie doesn't work.' I found that to be quite challenging, and thank goodness for Michael Mann because he crafted every moment and dialogue in that scene.

Pinkett Smith then provided her voice for Gloria the hippo in the DreamWorks' animated film Madagascar (2005). Director Eric Darnell stated, "[Pinkett Smith]'s got all this incredible power and attitude and strength and confidence, which is just what we wanted for Gloria the hippo," with Pinkett Smith commenting, "For Gloria, I really liked how maternal she was. She's kind of like a mama that has a tough-love approach, but still very sweet. I really liked [that] she was so maternal." Pinkett Smith will reprise the role for the sequel, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, scheduled for release on November 7, 2008.

Pinkett Smith returned to drama when she co-starred with Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle in Reign Over Me (2007). The film revolves around a friendship that has been lost between Charlie Fineman (Sandler) and Dr. Alan Johnson (Cheadle), but is rekindled after Fineman loses his family to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Pinkett Smith plays Janeane Johnson, the wife of Cheadle's character. Reception of the movie consisted of mixed reviews with Entertainment Weekly calling the film "a strange, black-and-blue therapeutic drama equally mottled with likable good intentions and agitating clumsiness."

In 2008, Pinkett Smith starred alongside Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, and Debra Messing in The Women, directed by Emmy Award-winner Diane English. Portraying lesbian author Alex Fisher, Pinkett Smith said in an interview, "Alex is def a nice slice of Jad. I would hope in my 'more mature years' that I've grown to have a little bit more finesse in my truth than Alex, but I do like to say what's on my mind. I do like to clown around a little bit. And I do tend to be a lot tougher than I really am."

Pinkett Smith completed her directorial debut, The Human Contract, in 2008, which she also wrote and has a small role in. The film stars Paz Vega and Idris Elba and debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2008. Her next project is the TNT drama pilot Time Heals, in which she is executive producer and a starring cast member.

In 2001, Pinkett Smith took on the supporting role of Sonji Roi, the first wife of famous boxer Muhammad Ali, in the biographical film Ali (2001). This would mark the first film that she would participate in with her husband, actor Will Smith, who portrayed Ali. The film received mostly good reviews from critics and earned Pinkett Smith a nomination from the NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture.

• Menace II Society 1993 Ronnie
• The Inkwell 1994 Lauren Kelly
• Jason's Lyric 1994 Lyric
• A Low Down Dirty Shame 1994 Peaches
• Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight 1995 Jeryline
• The Nutty Professor 1996 Carla Purty
• If These Walls Could Talk (TV) 1996 Patti
• Set It Off 1996 Lida "Stony" Newsom
• Princess Mononoke 1997 Toke (voice)
• Scream 2 1997 Maureen Evans
• Woo 1998 Woo
• Blossoms and Veils (short film) 1998 Mary
• Return to Paradise 1998 M.J. Major
• Bamboozled 2000 Sloan Hopkins
• Kingdom Come 2001 Charisse Slocumb
• Ali 2001 Sonji
• The Matrix Reloaded 2003 Niobe
• The Matrix Revolutions 2003 Niobe
• Collateral 2004 Annie
• Madagascar 2005 Gloria (voice)
• Reign Over Me 2007 Janeane Johnson
• The Women 2008 Alex Fisher
• Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa 2008 Gloria (voice)

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