NEED TO KNOW
- Jurnee Smollett shares her thoughts on her 8-year-old son Hunter becoming an actor in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE
- The actress has spent her entire life in front of a camera, but she says she wants to give Hunter the opportunity to explore all possible career fields
- She also reveals that he appears in the background of her latest show, Smoke, streaming on AppleTV+
Jurnee Smollett’s most important role is being a supportive mom.
Formerly a child actor, Smollett, 38, tells PEOPLE that she and her five siblings all “just kind of fell into” the field and never knew a life that was any different. Now that she has a son of her own, 8-year-old Hunter, whom she shares with her ex-husband Josiah Bell, she says she has begun to see him take an interest in the craft as well.
“He loves it,” she admits. “I was just recording something yesterday, and he was with me. And he was just hanging out and everyone was so impressed that he was able to be quiet, and he said to them, ‘I grew up on sets.’ And it’s true.”
“He’s now at an age where he’s able to watch the monitor — if the scene is appropriate, obviously,” she continues. “And he’ll be asking the writers, ‘Well, what happens in episode 3? Well, okay, but then what happens?’ And sometimes he comes home with things that are happening or places they plan to take the character that I don’t even know about.”
Smollett says Hunter enjoys all the behind-the-scenes elements of shows and movies and is fascinated by “the magic of cinema.”
“He keeps asking to be thrown into it,” she reveals. “So, sometimes the directors, they’ll just throw him in the background, and I’m like, ‘What is my son doing?’”
That happened recently while the actress was filming her latest project, in which she plays an arson investigator in the AppleTV+ crime drama Smoke. She says Hunter makes a cameo in the background of a kid’s birthday party scene in episode 3.
Despite his curiosity about the entertainment industry, Smollett doesn’t want Hunter to feel pressure to follow in her footsteps.
“I get asked this question a lot,” she notes. “I don’t know that I would let him audition when he was young or do the whole hustle. I think I’d encourage him to study it, take classes and workshops. But my goal is to expose him to as many different fields and see what sticks. He plays basketball and baseball, loves sports. He’s excelling at math. I mean, he can do math way higher than his grade level and loves science, so he’s always making science experiments around the house with some baking soda and vinegar and different ingredients.”
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“I think it’s natural if he’s around mommy telling stories that there’s a good chance he’ll want to go into it, but I also want him to have options,” she adds.
Smollett was in front of cameras starting when she was 10 months old.
Looking back to when she was Hunter’s age, Smollett was already known for playing Denise, the best friend of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s Michelle Tanner, in Full House. However, she says that she hadn’t felt “that artistic high” that comes from connecting with her characters until she got older.
“It wasn’t until I did Eve’s Bayou, when I was 10 years old with Samuel Jackson that I fell in love with the craft,” she recalls of the film that won her a Critics’ Choice Award in 1998. “I think prior to that it was fun the way Little League is fun for kids or the way you’ll put your child in ballet class and they love to dance.”
Smoke is now streaming on Apple TV+ with new episodes dropping weekly on Fridays.
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