Jada Pinkett Smith

Jada Koren Pinkett–Smith is an American actress who portrays Fish Mooney on Fox's Gotham''.

Biography
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Jada Koren Pinkett was named after her mother's favorite soap-opera actress, Jada Rowland. Pinkett Smith is of African American, West Indian (from Jamaica and Barbados), Creole, and Portuguese-Jewish ancestry. Her parents are Adrienne Banfield-Jones, the head nurse of an inner-city clinic in Baltimore, and Robsol Pinkett, Jr., who ran a construction company. Banfield-Jones became pregnant in high school; the couple married but divorced after several months. Banfield-Jones raised Pinkett with the help of her own mother, Marion Martin Banfield, a social worker. Banfield noticed her granddaughter's passion for the performing arts and enrolled her in piano, tap dance, and ballet lessons. She has a younger brother, actor/writer Caleeb Pinkett.

Pinkett Smith has remained close to her mother and said, "A mother and daughter's relationship is usually the most honest, and we are so close." She also added: "[My mother] understood what I wanted and never stood in my way." She participated as the maid of honor in Banfield-Jones' 1998 wedding to telecommunications executive Paul Jones. Pinkett Smith has shown great admiration for her grandmother, saying, "My grandmother was a doer who wanted to create a better community and add beauty to the world."

Pinkett Smith attended the Baltimore School for the Arts, where she met and became lifelong friends with classmate Tupac Shakur. She majored in dance and theatre and graduated in 1989. She continued her education at the North Carolina School of the Arts, and became fully invested in pursuing her acting career. She ultimately moved to Los Angeles, California, where she quickly found success in show business.