Jada Pinkett Smith was overcome with emotion while discussing her experience in the 1996 movie Set It Off.
In the movie, Smith plays Lida “Stony” Newsom, a woman who escapes to Mexico after attempting a bank robbery with her three friends. Lida becomes the lone survivor when all her friends are killed after the robbery. She then cuts her hair when she escapes to Mexico, Atlanta Black Star reports.
“That particular scene, I had already had so much loss and I had already, like, lost so many friends, and so I really reflected on those that I loved that I had lost, you know, and how everybody doesn’t make it and how you can be sitting with great fortune and have so much loss, have so much pain,” the actress said while looking back at her character's emotional scene.
Smith described the film as "a real easy movie to make as far as being able to dredge up all that emotion."
"It’s definitely a classic for me because it pinpoints a very transitional time in my life, recognizing that I had made it and that it was OK and I didn't have to feel guilty,” she said.
The actress added that she was already used to cutting her hair for movies at that point.
"It wasn't a problem," she said. "At that time, unlike now, I had a lot of hair and my hair grew back fast, so it wasn't a problem for me."
Smith decided to keep her hair short for a while after starring in Set It Off.
"And then I dyed it blonde," she added.
As Blavity previously reported, the Hollywood star spoke up about her experience with alopecia on Instagram in December.
“Y’all know I’ve been struggling with alopecia. Just all of sudden, one day. Look at this line right here, look at that,” she said. “Me and this alopecia are going to be friends … period.”
She also talked about her journey on her Facebook series, Red Table Talk, in 2018.
"Well, I've been having issues with hair loss,” the actress said at the time. “It was terrifying when it first started. I was in the shower one day and then just handfuls of hair just in my hands. … It was one of those times in my life that I was literally shaking with fear.”
