Jada Pinkett Smith Once Lost Her 'Desire' to Act — and Almost Went to School for Psychology

Jada Pinkett Smith once contemplated leaving acting behind and going on a completely new career path

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Jada Pinkett Smith’s career could have gone in a completely different direction.

After graduating from the Baltimore School for the Arts, the Red Table Talk host, 47, toyed with the idea of becoming a lawyer, before ultimately deciding to pursue acting.

During a panel at the Sundance Film Festival on Sunday, Pinkett Smith was asked whether she ever had any regrets early on about the decision, and while the actress said she didn’t at the time, she revealed that she did consider going back to school for something else later on in life.

“There were no questions in my early years. Maybe later on,” the Girls Trip star shared. “I kind of lost my desire to be in this industry for a lot of different reasons, and I was actually thinking about going back to school for psychology.”

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However, Pinkett Smith ultimately decided to stick it out.

“I was like, you’ve been doing this a long time, girl. Just sit back,” she remarked. “I just had to wait until I was motivated again. I had to wait until something came along and sparked me because I had just lost the desire to be in this game.”

Pinkett Smith has spoken about difficult times in her career before.

During an episode of Facebook Watch’s Red Table Talk last year, which Pinkett Smith co-hosts mother Adrienne Banfield-Jones, 64, and daughter Willow Smith, 18, the actress revealed that after getting “a certain amount of success” in L.A. she “had a complete emotional collapse.”

“It’s like when you just don’t have control over emotions,, your thoughts, you feel completely and utterly out of control. I don’t even think at that particular time I understood what I was going through,” she added.

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During her Sundance panel, Pinkett Smith also opened up about how she and husband Will Smith raised son Jaden, 20, and daughter Willow, to understand the value hard work.

“They had to start their charity lifestyle very early, [at] 5 years old they were in the orphanages at homeless shelters,” she shared. “They got to see that there’s life beyond all the twinkles and lights. That was really important to me, that they understood that listen you guys are really privileged and you are to learn how to offer and offer yourself and be in service to the world.”

She added, “They got to see very early, life is not a game and all of this here it’s not yours, me and daddy worked for all of this. I’d tell them, ‘Your room? That’s temporary! That ain’t your room, that’s a room you’re using in our house.’”

Red Table Talk airs Mondays on Facebook