One of the indelible images of Taraji P. Henson over the years was the moment where she was in the audience, nominated for an Emmy, and lost to Viola Davis. Instead of the typical “good sport” nod and clap we’ve come to expect from actresses, Henson jumped out of her seat and gave Davis a big hug as she went on stage to accept her honor.
So when Henson’s tears went viral this week over the lack of pay equity for black actresses, and her struggle at age 53 to rise in the pay ladder despite accolades that include an Oscar nomination and starring in box office (and Oscar-nominated) successes like Hidden Figures, her fellow actresses came out to lift her up.
“Not a damn lie told,” Gabrielle Union tweeted while expressing her love for Henson. Viola Davis simply tweeted “THIS!” while Octavia Spencer, posted “I’m sad to see @tarajiphenson so visibly upset. As much as I hate it, this is what it comes down to and I support her vocalizing our plight.”
It’s a moment that illustrated the fierce support the actress engenders in Black Hollywood — including from her co-stars, Fantasia Barrino and Danielle Brooks, who have seen her as their guide and mentor, from the beginning of filming The Color Purple and beyond.
“I stayed up under Taraji [on set],” Barrino told The Hollywood Reporter in a recent interview. “I didn’t know what I was doing. Sometimes they would yell certain things about the cameras, and I was like, ‘Excuse me. Did anybody forget that I’ve never done a movie before? I don’t know where I’m supposed to go.’ And Taraji would lead me.”
But will the rest of Hollywood listen? That question was weighing on Henson’s mind when she spoke to THR last month as she promoted her co-starring role as Shug Avery in The Color Purple remake, in which she surpasses expectations once again (yes, that’s her belting out songs like “Push the Button”).
“I’m winning when them zeros get right on the check. You know what I’m saying?” Henson told THR. “I’m tired.”
Though Henson has publicly shed tears throughout her press tour, she’s also celebrated the joy of the project and the possibilities that it represents, not only for her but for the rest of the cast, including her two co-stars.
“It’s anointed, this entire project, how we all were attached to the project. It’s been full-circle moment after full-circle moment. It just blows my mind. Look what God has done,” Henson says. “Because I couldn’t make this better myself.”
Even though she had to audition for the role of Shug for producers including Oprah Winfrey, the experience of filming The Color Purple made it well worth the effort. Henson, who calls Winfrey “Miss O,” describes Winfrey as the guiding force who made sure the production, featuring a nearly all-Black cast and a Black director in Blitz Bazawule, was nurtured unlike any set she’d been on before. Then there’s the added significance of taking on a work with the heft and social significance of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book.
“This film transcends sex. It transcends religion, race, color. I mean, it’s a story about humanity. It’s a story about forgiveness. It’s a story about redemption. It’s a story about flawed people who are given the gift of breath the next day to awaken and do something different, to make different choices,” she says.
“This lives on our way after we’re gone. Like we said, we all aspire to do this kind of work,” she adds. “I mean, I don’t know who comes into the game wanting to do D-movies. I want to leave a legacy behind. I want to be considered iconic.”
During a recent THR Presents screening in New York with Barrino, Brooks and Winfrey, she celebrated her two co-stars’ Golden Globes nominations and told them to relish in a moment that, particularly for Black actresses, was a rare triumph.
For Henson, her role in the Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures, where she starred in the true story of pioneering NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, whose calculations helped send the first astronauts to the moon, should have been one of those triumphant moments. The “coffee pot” scene where a weary Johnson finally vents to her all-white NASA co-workers about the racism she’s had to endure is the film’s emotional highlight.
Spencer, her co-star, received an Oscar nod for best supporting actress for her role in the film, yet Henson, the film’s lead, was overlooked. Henson believes she was not nominated because she refused to campaign for a supporting role instead of the lead.
“There hasn’t been a Black woman to win in the leading category of the Oscars since Halle Berry (in 2002) … and we’ve seen some powerful performances [since], right?” she says. “It’s because that is not how we are regarded. Remember, we were the help. We always supported them, raising their kids, cleaning the houses. We were never seen as leading ladies. So that’s why they’re eager to give us supporting roles. … And so what I didn’t do for Hidden Figures is I didn’t play politics. That was a leading role.”
Later, in a second interview, she adds through tears: “It’s triggering for me because during that coffee-pot scene, I was going through a hell of a moment in life. I was trying to save a loved one’s life. And so I literally had a friend hold the phone and I was like, ‘Keep them online.’ And I’m running from the phone running down the hall to do the scene and running back, back and forth, back and forth. So no, when people say, ‘Oh my God, that coffee-pot scene,’ sometimes it triggers me. Because it takes me back to what I was going through in that moment.”
Hidden Figures went on to gross nearly $170 million at the box office, one of several box office hits Henson has starred in, but she says her success has not had much impact on the salaries she’s been offered for more recent films. It’s a struggle she detailed in THR’s recent cover story on the making of The Color Purple, and part of her yearslong campaign to address pay inequities for Black actresses.
Brooks recalls how Henson advised her to be a better negotiator for herself even before the pair were cast in the film together.
“I went up to her and I was like, ‘Are you going to play Shug? I really hope you do.’ And she said, ‘If that check is right’. And we had a serious one-minute conversation where she was telling me to protect myself and not just take anything. And I feel like I take that to heart,” Brooks said. “Because it hurts to hear stories like Taraji’s when you’ve seen her body of work and you know what she brings and how inspirational that she has been to so many young girls, not just Black girls, young girls around the world.”
It’s the reason why Henson still keeps pushing forward, tears and all.
“The industry had me thinking I was too edgy, I’m street, I’m this, I’m that, and I ain’t Hollywood pretty. But the fight in me and my purpose, once I understood I had a purpose in this thing, I was like, ‘Oh no,’” she says. “There’s a place for me because there’s a girl out there that needs to see herself on this screen.”
