This Thursday, Sony Pictures Television will be launching Sony Entertainment Television, a new channel on Sky in the UK and Republic of Ireland.
Aimed at women aged between 25 and 54, the station will broadcast a range of dramas and comedies, including new show HawthoRNe, award-winning psychiatric drama Huff and marital comedy ‘Til Death. Sony Pictures’ back catalogue are also due to get an airing on Thursday to Monday evenings at 9pm, and Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola’s underrated follow-up to Lost In Translation) will launch this part of the channel.
Jada Pinkett Smith, star of the hospital-based HawthoRNe (receiving its UK premiere on the channel’s opening night) was in town recently to talk about the programme (which has recently been commissioned for a third series in the States). The show itself is the kind of unashamedly populist primetime drama that the US seem to do so well, and it should prove popular over here with the intended demographic.
Smith was a fun and willing participate, open about the demands of a hectic TV schedule and the challenges it throws up, particularly in trying to balance a high-pressured career with motherhood (a similar situation faced by her character in the show).
She talked first about what drew her to the series:
“One of the main reasons why I decided to participate in Hawthorne was because I really wanted the opportunity to portray ordinary people doing extra-ordinary things. Even when they come into work with their own problems and obstacles to deal with, at the end of the day, when we see people in need, we all come together and try to do the best for them.”
Both Smith’s young children now have profession careers in showbiz (son Jaden starred in last year’s Karate Kid reboot, while daughter Willow is now a fully-fledged pop star). She was asked what kind of relationship she had with her kids:
“I really look at children as being little people and not necessarily things or people to control. I think it’s important that proper parenting is helping kids develop to become individuals, because it’s not our job to make them think how we think or do the things that we would do. It’s about finding out who they are and enhancing their individuality but at the same token creating boundaries that keep them safe.”
She was sanguine when asked if she thought there was a danger of her children growing up too quickly:
“It’s very interesting because I don’t think of it as being an adult mentality. I think that’s one of the things we have to start being careful of – what is childlike thinking and what adult thinking is, especially when it comes to being creative. She’s just simply being creative.”
Willow will is also due to take the lead in an upcoming remake of Annie, a project formed along with Will Smith and American rapper Jay Z.
“We’re still putting the project together putting our feelers out there and figuring out what our team is going to be,” she said. “But what I will say is that we’re really excited about it and were working very hard.”
As executive producer of the series, Smith talked about the difficulties in tending to both roles:
“I don’t know that I’d ever do it again! I think I’d like to be just one or the other. As an executive producer you have to deal with a lot of the admin of the show… As an actor you really just get to focus on your role. So it’s very difficult in balancing it, juggling those two hats and staying creative. At the same time, sometimes you have to put the suit on and figure out what’s best for the show… I actually love them both… It’s just difficult doing them both at the same time.”
Having previously described husband Will as a ‘ghost producer’ in the show, she explained how he works:
“I had our head writer here just getting the first three episodes of HawthoRNe tight and [Will] just called me yesterday and he was like, ‘OK, I need the head writer to fly to New York by Thursday because I have some more notes on the upcoming episodes, I’ve got the outlines’. He is a master structuralist as far as story is concerned – there’s no-one better in the business than him in my opinion. He understands the pulse of what people want to see, how to create the maximum emotional impact. Starting last year he was very, very involved in HawthoRNe, so he’s been my knight in shining armour.”
Smith revealed how her own mother (a nurse ) reacted to the show:
“My mother wrote me a five-page email on all the things that she felt needed to be adjusted in the first year! So I actually got new medical advisers for the second year, so I knew we had at least done our job as far as all the details of being a nurse. I went to visit a few hospitals and we had a lot of nurses that were very happy because they felt like they were sexualised a lot in television programmes and they weren’t taken seriously and they felt like HawthoRNe represents them in a different way, so I was happy about that.”
Smith also talked about the political aspects of healthcare in the show:
“We’re taking it a little further in the third season because that is one of the primary issues in the States right now. I felt like it didn’t make sense to have a medical programme and not deal with those issues and have audience members who are watching it relating to what is happening with people in the medical industry every day. It’s really sad and this year we’re diving into it a bit more heavily.”
