by Kelly D. Harrington
She first caught our attention as a child in Eve’s Bayou, a teenager in Friday Light Nights and a college student in The Great Debaters. But Jurnee Smollett-Bell is a woman now. This summer, the married 27-year-old will join the blood-thirsty cast of HBO’s juggernaut hit True Blood. However, we can also catch her in March, in Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor having a hot, adulterous affair.
Related: First Look: ‘Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor’ [TRAILER]
THE ART OF ZEN
For Christmas, Jurnee’s husband, singer-writer-producer Josiah Bell, gave her the gift of yoga and together they are learning to “leave it all on the floor.” “My husband and I just moved into our first house together and I’m loving my kitchen and hosting parties; making cheese plates and stuff like that.”
BIRD’S THE WORD
Jurnee wants to take others along on the journey. She uses Twitter not only to share her life, but also to learn the paths of those less followed. “You build bonds and friendships with people that you might have never met personally.”
A WAKE UP CALL
Between her four brothers (all the siblings, including sister Jazz, starred together in the ‘90s sitcom On Our Own) and her husband, life is never short on pranks. When Perry called Jurnee early one morning, she thought it was one of her lovely jokesters. “I was like ‘Yeah, right, this isn’t Tyler.’ He said, ‘No sweetie, this is! Are you asleep? Okay, this is my cell, call me when you wake up.’” She woke up to an offer for a marquee role in a major film.
TAKE A BOW
She’s played the playmate, the sister, the comic relief, the heroine and now, in Temptation, she’s a lover, wife and mistress. What’s next? “The stage! I respect theater actors because the discipline and muscles that theater requires is breathtaking.”
Photo credit: Joseph Cultice/CBS
