Jada Pinkett Smith: The family 'nucleus'

By Bryan Alexander, USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES — On the set of TNT's medical drama Hawthorne, a dire food allergy emergency unravels as cameras capture every heart-thumping moment. But a parking lot away, the series' star and producer Jada Pinkett Smith, 39, is enjoying something of a low-key day from her usual 14-hour shooting schedule, grabbing a few rays of sun outside her set trailer.

  • the set of her TNT series  italic>Hawthorne /italic>, Jada Pinkett Smith shares that she's "always calling audibles somewhere." She also serves as the command center for her famous family.

    By Robert Hanashiro,, USA TODAY

    the set of her TNT series italic>Hawthorne /italic>, Jada Pinkett Smith shares that she's "always calling audibles somewhere." She also serves as the command center for her famous family.

By Robert Hanashiro,, USA TODAY

the set of her TNT series italic>Hawthorne /italic>, Jada Pinkett Smith shares that she's "always calling audibles somewhere." She also serves as the command center for her famous family.

Her sultry, half-mast eyes come to life as her 10-year-old daughter Willow, with her famous hair tightly corralled into two French braids, approaches.

"Umm, Mom," Willow asks leaning in close. "Can I go to Staples?"

Pinkett Smith immediately halts a media interview and kicks into Mom mode, swiftly arranging a ride and proper supervision for her now-famous offspring.

The new plan: Willow will return from her beloved office supply store with new gel pens and Pinkett Smith will finalize some work at the show's editing bay and shore up a Hawthorne script. Then the busy mother and daughter duo will head home.

When the show returns for its third season on June 14 Christina Hawthorne, the heroic resident nurse played by Pinkett Smith, will again face life and death on a weekly basis. But the actress has an equally complicated real-life task serving as the command center for one of Hollywood's most famous families while quarterbacking a television program.

"I'm always calling audibles somewhere," she says with a laugh. "That's what I do all day, whether it's on the Hawthorne set or not."

Pinkett Smith has a plan to push her show into a different league from its previous seasons -- beginning with a traumatic bang in the premiere episode that affects the entire at staff at James River hospital throughout the summer's 10 episodes. The opening episode, "For Better or Worse," features pregnant Christina's wedding to Dr. Tom Wakefield (Michael Vartan) but quickly goes to the "worse" part -- a whole lotta worse.

"This is our do-or-die season. We're pushing the envelope," she says. "We're going raw and we're going hard and edgy."

She's also adding a little "sizzle" in the form of Marc Anthony, who becomes a permanent fixture following guest appearances during season two. Pinkett Smith says Anthony insisted on returning to the show.

"He and (wife Jennifer Lopez) would invite us over for dinner and it was like, 'Yo, what's going on with Hawthorne,'" says Pinkett Smith. "He was like, 'Let's do this!'He kept seriously reiterating it and the team wanted nothing more than to have him. It was like, 'Okay, let's figure this out.'"

An admittedly "passionate" Anthony agreed to come on as the show's musical director and as Detective Nick Renata, a tough-talking threat to Vartan's Wakefield. Pinkett Smith calls the resulting situation a "hard-core triangle," but won't go into detail.

The onscreen sexual tension between Renata and Hawthorne is a source of amusement for the friends.

"We crack on it, its just another thing we enjoy," says Anthony, adding that Pinkett Smith will laugh at some of his onscreen advances. "She will be like, 'Do not tell me that's how you roll with Jennifer, please!'"

For her part, Pinkett Smith finds herself jokingly warning her co-star, "Hey listen, you make sure J's cool with this now."

She adds, "I tell him Will (Smith, Jada's husband) is already talking payback, saying that Jennifer is going to be in his next movie."

Far from concerned, Lopez even took time from American Idol duties to visit the set and give some "dope insight" into her husband's character, says Pinkett Smith. Lopez's notes for Antony: "You have to love Christina Hawthorne hard in order for this to make sense."

Anthony's addition to the cast has also meant that the respective families are, for the first time, neighbors. Anthony's massive customized trailer, big enough to hold a recording studio, sits perpendicular to Pinkett Smith's matching vehicle, the corners of their artificial green lawns overlapping.

"I just moved to the neighborhood," laughs Anthony. "It's the 90210 of parking lots. And it's a cool place to hang out."

Indeed, the Smith kids are a constant presence on the picnic table outside the trailer, giving the off-set area a feeling of "summer camp," says Vartan.

It's all the better to allow Pinkett Smith the opportunity to stay fully plugged into the burgeoning family franchise.

Willow, whose first pop single Whip My Hair went platinum, is just one branch. There's also Karate Kid star Jaden, who is prepping for his next movie while working in the recording studio. Stepson Trey (whom she refers to as a "bonus son") is writing music for Hawthorne fresh off of his high school graduation. And of course there is husband Will, now shooting Men in Black 3 in New York.

"My husband has his needs that he's calling me five times a day about," laughs Pinkett Smith. "You can't drop the ball there."

Life at the Smith household is so complicated that rather than a family chalkboard, their home kitchen features a giant electronic screen which details everyone's complicated schedule - with Mom at the center.

"I'm the glue that keeps it all together," she says. "I'm the nucleus of an entertainment family. My day to day is making decisions to keep life above water."

Even with the parenting, the producing and the starring role which requires her to be in almost every scene, Pinkett Smith keeps a constant cool head, a ready laugh, and a surprisingly goofy sense of humor, according to Vartan ? whether it's joking with the craft services attendant at 2:30 in the morning or dealing with the prankster Anthony.

During filming of one Hawthorne scene featuring a dramatic Pinkett Smith close-up, an off-camera Anthony suddenly got the giggles.

"He had to turn his entire body and I could see he was shaking uncontrollably with laughter," says Vartan. "Jada was locked in and never broke. And when the director yelled cut, she just goes, 'You're terrible.'"

"They just cracked up," he says. "It was hilarious."

The entire Smith family' drive is no laughing matter and could even put Anthony to shame at the end of a 20-hour day. "They're unbelievable. I feel like an underachiever when I hear what they've got going on," he says. "From Willow to Jaden to Will. I'm like 'Who are you?' You know what I mean? They just have it."

They've also kept it together in a town filled with Hollywood child star horror stories. Pinkett Smith says it's her and her husband's lifestyle that sets the tone in keeping their kids grounded.

"Hollywood is not our life. It's what we do," she says. "We rarely come out of the house. Every time we go to a function it's like 'Oh my God, you guys came out of the cave.'"

The couple instills self-empowerment and self-discipline into their children . But Pinkett Smith is also sure that in the days of TMZ, there is bound to be a slip-up.

"When Will and I were growing up, it was a different game," she says. "If we had microscope on us growing up -- Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears didn't have jack on us.

"My kids will have their moment. It's inevitable. Just because they are grounded, doesn't mean they are not going to get off track at some point," she adds. "But I know for a fact, they are going to be okay."

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