Taraji’s turn: With ‘The Color Purple’, will Henson get what’s coming to her?

One of Taraji P. Henson’s indelible images over the years was the moment she was in the audience, nominated for an Emmy and losing to Viola Davis. Instead of the typical “good sport” nod and applause we expect from actresses, Henson jumped out of her seat and gave Davis a big hug as she walked up to the stage to accept the honor from her.

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 move up the pay scale despite accolades that include an Oscar nomination and starring in blockbusters (and Oscar nominees) as hidden figures, Her fellow actresses came out to pick her up.

“Not a damn lie,” Gabrielle Union tweeted while expressing her love for Henson. Viola Davis simply tweeted “THIS!” while Octavia Spencer posted “It saddens me to see @tarajiphenson so visibly upset. As much as she hates it, this is what it comes down to and I support her expressing our plight.”

It’s a moment that illustrated the fierce support the actress commands in Black Hollywood, including from her co-stars, Fantasia Barrino and Danielle Brooks, who have seen her as their guide and mentor since the beginning of filming. The color Purple and beyond.

“I stayed under Taraji (on set),” Barrino said. The Hollywood Reporter in a recent interview. “I didn’t know what I was doing. Sometimes they would shout certain things over the cameras and I would say, ‘Excuse me.’ Did anyone forget that they had never made a movie before? I don’t know where I’m supposed to go. And Taraji would guide me.”

But will the rest of Hollywood listen? That question weighed on Henson’s mind as he spoke with THR last month while promoting his co-starring role as Shug Avery in The color Purple remake, in which he once again exceeds expectations (yes, he sings songs like “Push the Button”).

“I’m winning when the zeros appear on the check. Do you know what I’m talking about?” Henson said THR. “I’m tired.”

Although Henson publicly shed tears during her press tour, she also celebrated the joy of the project and the possibilities it represents, not only for herself but for the rest of the cast, including her two co-stars.

“This whole project is anointed, how we were all united to the project. It has been one full circle moment after another. It just amazes me. Look what God has done,” Henson says. “Because I couldn’t improve this myself.”

Although he had to audition for the role of Shug for producers like Oprah Winfrey, the experience of filming The color Purple It made the effort worth it. Henson, who calls Winfrey “Miss O,” describes Winfrey as the guiding force who made sure the production, with an almost exclusively black cast and a black director in Blitz Bazawule, was cared for like no other set she had ever been on. been before. Then there is the added importance of taking on a work with the weight and social importance 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 is a story about forgiveness. It’s a story about redemption. “It’s a story about imperfect people who are given the gift of encouragement the next day to wake up and do something different, to make different decisions,” she says.

“This lives on in our path after we are 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 make D movies. I want to leave a legacy. “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 Globe nominations and told them to enjoy 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 in which a weary Johnson finally vents to her all-white NASA coworkers about the racism she has endured is the film’s emotional highlight.

Spencer, her co-star, received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress for her role in the film, but Henson, the film’s lead, was overlooked. Henson believes she was not nominated because she refused to campaign for a supporting role rather than the lead.

“There hasn’t been a black woman to win in the top Oscar category since Halle Berry (in 2002)… and we’ve seen some powerful performances (since then), right?” she says. “It’s because that’s not how we’re considered. Remember, we were the help. We always support them, raising their children, cleaning the houses. We were never seen as protagonists. That’s why they’re eager to give us supporting roles. …And then what I didn’t do for hidden figures It’s just that I didn’t play politics. “That was a leading role.”

Later, in a second interview, she adds through tears: “It’s a trigger for me because during that coffee pot scene, I was going through an incredible moment in life. He was trying to save the life of a loved one. So literally a friend held the phone and I said, ‘Keep them on the line.’ And I’m running from the phone running down the hallway to do the scene and running back and forth, back and forth. So no, when people say, ‘Oh my God, that coffee pot scene,’ it triggers me sometimes. Because it reminds me of what was happening at that time.”

hidden figures went on to gross nearly $170 million at the box office, one of several blockbusters Henson has starred in, but she says its success hasn’t had much impact on the salaries she’s been offered for more recent films. It’s a struggle she detailed in THR recent cover story on the making of The color Purple, and part of her year-long campaign to address pay inequalities for black actresses.

Brooks recalls how Henson advised her to be a better negotiator even before the two were cast in the film together.

“I went up to her and said, ‘Are you going to play Shug? I really hope you do.’ And she said, ‘If that check is correct.’ And we had a serious conversation for a minute in which she told me to protect myself and not to drink anything. And I feel like I take it seriously,” Brooks said. “Because it hurts to hear stories like Taraji’s when you’ve seen her work and know what she brings to the table and how inspiring she’s been to so many girls, not just black girls, but girls around the world.”

It’s the reason Henson keeps going, tears and all.

“The industry made me think I was too nervous, I’m streetwise, I’m this, I’m that, and I’m not the pretty one in Hollywood. But the struggle in me and my purpose, once I understood that I had a purpose in this, I was like, ‘Oh no,’” she says. “There’s a place for me because there’s a girl who needs to see herself on this screen.”