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.

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 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.”

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