Pinkett, Jada 1971(?)—

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Jada Pinkett 1971(?)—

Actress

“Nothing’s ever enough for me,” Jada Pinkett declared to James Ryan of GQ. “It’s never enough. There’s always somewhere new to go.” Whether that “somewhere new” is an acting role or a venture like directing rap videos or marketing T-shirts she designs, Pinkett rarely shrinks from a challenge. By the age of 23, she had already won over film critics with a series of diverse but equally scene-stealing performances in such films as Menace II Society, A Low Down Dirty Shame, and Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight, handling intimate drama, broad comedy, and action-horror heroism with aplomb. “She is the consummate professional, even though she’s very young,” remarked director Doug McHenry—who worked with Pinkett on the drama Jason’s Lyric —in People, adding that audiences “are only beginning to know the potential of her range.” The Source echoed this plaudit, praising her “ability to effortlessly inhabit the characters she portrayed.”

Pinkett was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to contractor Robsol Pinkett, Jr. and nurse Adrienne Banfield; her parents divorced around the time of her birth. Raised in the rough neighborhood known as Pimlico by her mother as well as her grandmother Marion Banfield, she soon developed the confidence and openness to experimentation that would catapult her to fame; her relationship with her mother Adrienne was pivotal in this regard. “We were more like sisters in some ways than mother and daughter,” Pinkett averred in her People interview. “We leaned on each other a lot.”

Her grandmother, she recollected, “taught me that I can achieve whatever I want to achieve. Grandmama wanted her grandchildren to have every possible experience—ballet, tap dancing, piano lessons, gymnastics. She didn’t want us to ever think we were deprived.” Marion Banfield also told her about sex; as Pinkett noted to GQ’s Ryan, she “sat me down at the age of 9 and let me know that masturbation was a very natural thing. The body, nudity, was very special and beautiful.”

Displayed Talent Early

By age 14 she had demonstrated sufficient talent and drive to attend the Baltimore School for the Arts. One of her schoolmates was Tupac Shakur, who would later make headlines as rapper, film star, and rape suspect. Pinkett vehemently defended her friend to People: “No is no, and rape is rape,” she declared, “but I know for sure, without a doubt, that he’s not capable of that action.”

Experimenting with wild hair colors, riding a motorcycle, and otherwise coming out of whatever shell remained, Pinkett was pleased to find that her “family let me flow. I was always just Jada. I never changed my personality.” Acting was clearly her only viable career option, she told Entertainment Weekly’s Heather Keets: “There was nothing else I could do, except maybe go to law school and pass the bar, so the courtroom would be my stage.”

At a Glance…

Born c. 1971 in Baltimore, MD; daughter of Robsoi Pinkett, Jr. (a contractor) and Adrienne Banfield (a nurse). Education: Attended Baltimore School for the Arts and North Carolina School for the Arts.

Actress, video director, clothing designer, and poet, 1991—. Appeared on NBC-TV program A Different World, 1991-93; appeared in films Menace II Society 1993, The Inkwell, Jason’s Lyric, A Low Down Dirty Shame, all 1994, and Demon Knight, 1995; directed videos for Y?N—Vee and Shug & Dap, 1994; designed clothes for own Maja line, 1994—; performed poetry readings around U.S.; appeared at schools and shelters as motivational speaker.

Addresses: Publicist —Bragman, Nyman, Caffarelli, 9171 Wilshire Blvd., Penthouse Suite, Beverly Hills, CA 90210.

Pinkett graduated from Baltimore and went on to the North Carolina School of the Arts, but within a year had relocated to Los Angeles to pursue show business professionally. After meeting Keenen Ivory Way ans—creator and star of the hit television comedy series In Living Color —at a party, she pestered him for a job as choreographer on the show. She had had no professional experience, she admitted, but she had helped with some dance numbers in a high school play. Way ans did not give her the gig she wanted, but was impressed with her and provided her with some motivation. “I used to beg, ’Keenen, put me on your show, put me on your show. ’ And he was always like, ’No,’” she recalled to Keets of Entertainment Weekly. Wayans instead “encouraged me to get off my lazy tail, get an agent, and do something.”

In 1991 Pinkett landed the role of Lena James on the hit TV situation comedy A Different World. In that role, Keets observed, “sassiness became her signature.” The show lasted two years; by the time it left the air, she had committed to a dramatic role in a feature by two struggling filmmakers, Allen and Albert Hughes. She attacked the role of an unwed mother in their low-budget film Menace II Society with gusto; both she and the movie earned critical raves. It was crucial to Pinkett, as she explained to Ryan, to establish her dramatic credentials in Hollywood without coming off as a bombshell: “I didn’t want to start in this business as a very sexual woman or a very attractive woman. I wanted to be noticed because of the talent.”

Played Lyric Role with Sensitivity

Pinkett took on a romantic role in The Inkwell, Matty Rich’s nostalgic 1994 comedy-drama. Though the film fared poorly both at the box office and with critics—Entertainment Weekly deemed it “ungainly and amateurish”—it did not prevent Pinkett from earning more roles. She landed another romantic lead, the title role in Jason’s Lyric. The film’s love scenes were steamy enough to earn it an NC-17 rating, the equivalent of box-office poison; they were re-edited so that the movie received an R rating. Even the image of Pinkett’s naked thigh (wrapped around the body of her costar Allen Payne) in the promotion poster ruffled industry feathers and had to be airbrushed out. “People are so uptight about sex,” she complained to Ryan. “What are they tripping about? It’s not even kinky sex.” She added that she suspected “society has a problem with black intimacy.”

Lyric director McHenry described Pinkett to The Source magazine as “a really fabulous actress. She played Lyric as not just another stereotypical Black woman, but with sensitivity. She showed you that a woman can handle herself without drinking with the fellas, or cursing every other word.” Entertainment Weekly critic Lisa Schwarzbaum, however, found the film’s love affair “clichéd,” little more than “a picture-perfect romance that inspires pretty, petite Pinkett to wear floaty dresses out of a perfume ad and quote the poetry of John Donne to handsome, muscled Payne.” Yet, again, Pinkett got noticed in the film community. Indeed, as The Source proclaimed, “1994 was the year Jada showed us what ’a nineties kinda girl’ really looks like!”

Pinkett at last got her opportunity to work with Wayans. “He busted my ass,” she declared to Keets. “I had to read twice, no three times, for him!” At last, however, she landed the role of Peaches in his action-comedy A Low Down Dirty Shame. “Peaches is raw,” Pinkett insisted of the character, sidekick to Shame, Wayans’s private eye. “She’s got real long nails and a major attitude. Givin’ you straight ghetto. Ghetto vogue.” Despite her diminutive stature, Pinkett told People that she enjoyed “rolling down the stairs and having someone kick me around the set. The stunts were the best part of making the movie.”

While the film suffered generally poor reviews, Pinkett invariably shone. People cited raves from both coasts, with Stephen Holden of the New York Times declaring that she “walks away with the movie,” and Los Angeles Times reviewer Kevin Thomas gushing that the actress “lights up the screen.” Apart from Wayans’s charm, wrote Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman, who gave the film a “C” grade, the film has “one other saving grace,” namely Pinkett, “a hyperkinetic comic sprite.” Gleiberman added that “Pinkett parades her head-waggling bravado with a welcome dose of self-mockery.” Keets ventured that after “all the buzz about her fierce performance in Shame, Pinkett won’t stay a secret for long.”

Diverse Passions

She again seized the limelight in Ernest Dickerson’s Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight, an action-horror feature that spun off from a successful cable television series. She cut her hair short and dyed it platinum for the role, “a pure creative choice,” as she told Essence. Battling the film’s evil title character, she emerged as the first black female action hero on the big screen in nearly two decades. She told Ryan that the genre suited her taste: “I’d love to work with [acclaimed action directors] Ridley Scott or John Woo. I’m sick and tired of seeing black women on the screen as victims.” She does enjoy sharing an audience’s appreciation of her on-screen strength, however. “I love sitting in the back [of the theater] with a big hat on so nobody can recognize me,” she confessed to People, “and watching people having fun during one of my movies. They’re going, ’Yeah, Jada—go girlF Wow! It doesn’t get any better than that.”

Pinkett’s acting has kept her busy, but not at the expense of her many other passions. She started a mailorder clothing line called Maja, consisting largely of T-shirts and dresses bearing feminist slogans. Periodically, she has appeared at venues like Mama’s Kitchen in New York to give poetry readings. Leasing an apartment in Studio City, California, she told People that she had not had time for a serious relationship, which she considered “a real sacrifice.” Essence reported that she avoids red meat, although “I do eat fish and chicken. I’m so small that if I ate just vegetables, I’d just disappear.”

She has also directed videos for some rap-artist friends, notably Y?N-Vee; she oversaw the clip for their song “4-Play” and has also worked with hip-hop comers Shug & Dap. Her credentials in this department no doubt help when she gives motivational talks to inner-city youngsters. “I tell the kids that from struggle comes strength,” she declared in the People profile. “And if everything’s easy, then how do you know how to survive when, inevitably, there comes a time when things aren’t so happy-go-lucky?”

Things have been pretty agreeable for Pinkett in the wake of Shame and Knight, however. Inundated with scripts and apparently eyed by superstar Eddie Murphy for more high-profile work, she has become a player in Hollywood. Even so, she acknowledged to People that black women traditionally have fewer kinds of roles to choose from than their white counterparts: “I’d love to play [Shakespearean lover] Juliet. I’d like to see [an erotic thriller] cast with black people. Still, we’re getting there, slowly but surely.”

The young star has not been proceeding slowly in her own work. “I’m pretty hard to stop,” she admitted to People. “When I want something, I go get it.” As she told Essence, “I’m extremely ambitious. I don’t know why people are afraid to say that. I won’t sell my soul to the devil, but I do want success and I don’t think that’s bad.”

Having demonstrated an exceptional acting range in a few short years—and having dazzled critics with her onscreen charisma—Pinkett has already achieved a certain plateau of success, and seems destined for more. She is living proof of her own belief in self-definition; as she noted to Ryan, “You can be sexy, you can be fragile, you can be vulnerable, and at the same time be very strong and have something to say.”