Taraji P. Henson is opening up about her time filming The Color Purple and is criticizing that production had the cast drive themselves to the set.
In a new interview, the Empire alum revealed that producers of the film gave the cast rental cars to take themselves to the set of the production. However, Henson said she fought to get a driver due to it being an “insurance liability.”
“They gave us rental cars, and I was like, ‘I can’t drive myself to set in Atlanta.’ This is insurance liability, it’s dangerous. Now they robbing people,” Henson recalled during an interview with The New York Times. “What do I look like, taking myself to work by myself in a rental car? So I was like, ‘Can I get a driver or security to take me?’ I’m not asking for the moon. They’re like, ‘Well, if we do it for you, we got to do it for everybody.’”
She continued, “Well, do it for everybody! It’s stuff like that, stuff I shouldn’t have to fight for. I was on the set of Empire fighting for trailers that wasn’t infested with bugs.”
Henson noted that these situations wear on her soul “because you fight so hard to establish a name for yourself and be respected in this town to no avail.”
“With Black films, they just don’t want to take us overseas and I don’t understand that,” she added. “Black translates all over the world, so why wouldn’t the movies? I have a following in China of all places. Y’all not going to capitalize on that? Don’t everybody want to make money here? I’m not the person that pulls the race card every time, but what else is it, then? Tell me. I’d rather it not be race, please give me something else.”
Henson has been talking about the disparity that exists in Hollywood and during the press tour for The Color Purple, she broke down in tears over the pay discrepancies despite her long and established career in the industry.
“I’m just tired of working so hard, being gracious at what I do, getting paid a fraction of the cost,” Henson said after taking a long pause and breaking down during an interview with Gayle King on SiriusXM. “I’m tired of hearing my sisters say the same thing over and over. You get tired. I hear people go, ‘You work a lot.’ I have to. The math ain’t math-ing. And you start working a lot, you have a team. Big bills come with what we do. We don’t do this alone. It’s a whole team behind us. They have to get paid.”
