Jada Pinkett Smith
The petite half of one of Hollywood's most prominent power couples got her start studying dance at the Baltimore School For The Arts alongside Tupac Shakur and as Miss Maryland 1988. She quit attending the North Carolina School of Arts when friend Keenan Ivory Wayans found her an agent. While she got her big break first in TV on the "Cosby" spinoff "A Different World" in 1991, she quickly made the switch to film and wouldn't return to the small screen full-time until 2009's "Hawthorne," a TNT series on which she played a nurse. While she has done a few comedies ("The Nutty Professor", the "Madagascar" franchise, "A Low Down Dirty Shame." "Kingdom Come"), her bread and butter has been roles of a more serious variety in films like "Menace II Society" (1993), "Scream 2," the "Matrix" sequels, "Collateral" and "Reign Over Me." In 1997, she became royalty when she married Fresh Prince Will Smith and they welcomed son Jaden in 1998 and daughter Willow in 2000. The couple started Overbrook Entertainment, through which she has produced projects like the 2003-2007 TV series "All Of Us" and the recent documentary "Free Angela and All Political Prisoners" as well as vehicles for her children like "The Karate Kid" remake and "After Earth." The current "Gotham" baddie is a part-owner in the skincare line Carol's Daughter and fronts a heavy metal band called Wicked Wisdom, which released its first CD in 2006.
