them in-between . `` So they get to eat chocolate for breakfast and go to bed whenever they feel like it for those three months while I 'm working , '' Pinkett Smith said . `` So , it works out , and they know that the rest of the year , I 'm off . '' While the show is based on a Richmond , Virginia , hospital , it 's produced in a recently closed Inglewood , California , hospital just a few miles from the Smiths ' home . `` The great thing is that my kids do know I 'm in town , '' she said . It 's close enough for Will to spend time on the set with Jada while still taking care of the kids . `` He 's an extra in one of the episodes , so just see if you can catch him , '' she said . `` He 's walking by , doing a drive-by , and we could hardly afford that . It was a very costly walk-by . '' Smith also works as a `` ghost producer '' helping structure her episodes , she said . ``
LOS ANGELES , California -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Before Jada Pinkett Smith took the role of producer and star of TNT 's `` HawthoRNe , '' she made sure her family was fine with her being away from her mother and wife duties during filming . Jada Pinkett Smith 's new TV show , `` HawthoRNe , '' premieres Tuesday on TNT . Pinkett Smith plays a single mom and a hospital 's chief nurse on the medical show , which debuts Tuesday night on cable 's TNT Network , which is owned by the parent company of CNN . `` I sat down with kids and my husband and I really asked their permission , '' she said . `` I said ` Listen , there was this show I 'd love to do and it will be three months that you might not see Mommy a lot . ' And they 're looking at me like ` Really ? What does that mean ? ' '' It meant that on weekdays Will would get Willow , 8 , and Jaden , 11 , out of bed each morning , tuck them in at night and take care of