She’s an award-winning actress, a budding
film and television producer, a singer and a
single mom — and a nomad.
“I am always going,” chuckles Taraji P. Henson, the
star of the hit television series “Empire” and Oscar-
nominated films like “Hidden Figures,” “The Curious
Case of Benjamin Button” and “Hustle and Flow,”
during our wide-ranging conversation. “It’s to the point
where, you know how you find pennies in the bottom
of your purse? I’m finding travel tickets, airline tickets
in the bottom of my purse. Receipts. It’s out of my
control. I used to be able to clock in my miles. Now I
have to hire somebody to do that, because I just can’t
keep track. It’s just too much.”
Henson has called Los Angeles home since 1997,
when she packed up her then two-year-old son
Marcel (he’s 23 now) and left Washington, D.C.’s
“I FEEL LIKE WHAT
I DO IS BIGGER
THAN ME, SO IT’S
NEVER ABOUT ME”
Southeast for the bright lights of Hollywood. She
was 26 years old and ready to take on the world.
She’d studied drama at Howard University and honed
her skills working shifts on the Spirit of Washington,
a dinner cruise ship that still roams the Potomac
River offering three hours of entertainment, food,
libations and views of the capital city.
“Oh my God. Let me tell you, it paid the bills. That
was a good gig there. I mean, I was working doubles,
sometimes I would work a triple shift and those checks,
man. I’d never seen that many zeroes on one check for
me,” she recalls with a laugh. “It was buffet-style eating
and we’d sing little corny songs. We danced and did the
Conga line with them as they got very merry. I made my
tips off my personality.”
Her personality is certainly part of her charm — that
and her lovely visage and strong physique led her to
small parts right away. Remember her from “Felicity”
FLYWASHINGTON.COM 6 WINTER 2017/18
or “E.R.”? Honestly, we don’t either, but soon enough
she snagged her first film, in director John Singleton’s
“Baby Boy” (2001) and then her first TV series, as
Inspector Raina Washington on “The Division,” from
2002-2004.
As she built her Hollywood credits, Henson was
emulating her favorites — think Meryl Streep, Carol
Burnett, Bette Davis, Lucille Ball, Richard Pryor, Tom
Hanks — the actors and comedians she mentions as
the ones she both studied and admired. “‘Baby Boy’
was my first motion picture and I got compared to
two people that I had really looked up to and studied:
Goldie Hawn and Diana Ross. They said I had the
comedic timing of Goldie Hawn and the rawness of
Diana Ross. That is one of the reviews that I will never,
ever forget,” she says.
Getting rave reviews has become the norm as the
years have passed for the talented 47-year-old actress,
who now owns a coveted Screen Actors Guild Award
(for the “Hidden Figures” ensemble), a Golden Globe
and a Critics Choice Award (both for Best Actress
in a Television Drama Series for “Empire”), six BET
Awards, seven Image Awards and one Academy Award
nomination (for her performance in “The Curious
Case of Benjamin Button”) and three Emmy Award
nominations for “Empire.”
But Taraji Henson insists that, “I feel like what I do is
bigger than me, so it’s never about me”; instead, it is
about the art of inhabiting different characters and
bringing them to life.
“I’m an artist. I’m an artist to the bone. Some people
paint, some people sing, I act. That’s how I get off my
art. That’s how I do it. I’m really serious about it. It’s not
about being cute and hitting the mark. It’s a craft and I
take it very seriously.”
She’s serious about taking control of her own destiny,
too, by moving steadily into producing both films and
television shows. Her most recent movie project is
“Proud Mary,” an action thriller shot in Massachusetts
that is due out in January 2018, in which she stars and
acts as executive producer.
“I