CINDY PEARLMAN
NYT SYNDICATE
It took awhile for Taraji P Henson's career to kick into gear, but nowadays the actress is clicking on all cylinders. The former Oscar nominee not only stars in one of television's hottest series, playing the indomitable Cookie Lyon on 'Empire,' but also stars in a highly touted holiday movie, Hidden Figures.
In other words, the 46-year-old Henson has arrived.
"I just can't go discount shopping anymore and, if I do, I have to dress like the Unabomber," Henson joked."Cookie has become such a phenomenon that the fans have a very physical reaction to whatever she's doing on the screen. They will hit me, poke me or grab me at wee hours in the morning when I'm minding my own business on a plane.
"I'm like, 'Whoa, it's kind of early for that. I need my coffee first,'" she said."I have never experienced fame on this level."
That acclaim should only increase after Hidden Figures opens on Christmas. The based-on-fact film centres on some unsung heroes of the space programme, three African-American women whose mathematical skills helped America get to the moon.
"It's about race, gender and me not wanting another little girl growing up believing the myth and the lie that girls can't do math or science," Henson said."That's why getting this role was one of those 'Thank you, God' moments. It really is a case of me asking myself, 'How did this fall into my lap?'"
Henson plays Katherine Johnson, a West Virginia farmer's daughter who became a space scientist and mathematician at NASA. An expert in computerised celestial navigation, her work included calculating the trajectories, launch windows and emergency-backup routes for Project Mercury, including the pioneering space missions of Alan Shepard and John Glenn.
Johnson worked with colleagues Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae) to help NASA win the space race via their mathematical computations.
"Men didn't want those jobs," Henson said."They felt as if they were too secretarial. Meanwhile Katherine went to work doing what she loved to do, which was work with numbers."
Henson had been working with director Theodore Melfi on another project that wasn't gelling when he gave her the Hidden Figures script.
"I took the role because it made me nervous," the actress said."If a role doesn't scare me, then, nine times out of 10, I don't do it. If I'm not frightened, then it means I've done it before or I'm not connecting.
"This made me real nervous, because I thought, 'Oh, God, everyone is going to find out I'm a hack because I don't like math.'"
Nonetheless Henson signed on.
"This story truly upset me," she recalled."I was blown away by it, but upset that I didn't know about these women until now.
"These are American heroes," Henson said."Why didn't we learn about them in science and math class in elementary school or high school or even college? These are the women who did the math to get our people into space, yet history had forgotten them."
The film is based on the book Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race (William Morrow, 2016), by Margot Lee Shetterly.
"It became my mission to tell everyone about these women," Henson said.
She started by meeting with the real Johnson, who is still alive today at 98.
"There was a responsibility to get it right," Henson said."So I went to see her, and she had her daughters there and her granddaughter. They hugged me and said, 'Oh my God, we're so happy they got you to play our mother and grandmother.'
"No pressure there," the actress said with a laugh."Then I waited for the queen to come out, and she greeted me warmly.
"I thought, 'Wow, I'm in the presence of a real-life superhero,'" Henson continued."When you talk about superheroes, they're selfless. They put humanity before them. That was Katherine. I was in awe of her humility."
The two sat down to talk about Johnson's story as she saw it.
"I tried to make our conversation weighty," Henson said."I asked, 'As a black woman, how did you do it?' 'How did you handle times that were so misogynistic?' 'How did you handle the racism?'
"Katherine said, 'Well, that was the way it was. And I just did my job,'" the actress recalled."She was so humble about it. She kept saying that life wasn't about obstacles, but about opportunity."
Johnson also made it clear that the programme was a team effort ” not merely of her team of mathematicians, but of everyone involved, male, female, black, white or otherwise.
"She kept saying 'we,'" Henson recalled."I thought, 'No, it was you. It was your mind that helped John Glenn orbit the earth.' But she refused to see it that way."
Back on the Atlanta set, the actress said, she kept looking back to that conversation.
"I just wanted to make her proud," Henson said."Each day I kept asking myself, 'Will Katherine be proud? Will she be happy?' That's all I cared about."
Playing a mathematical wizard didn't require Henson to actually learn any mathematics herself.
"We had mathematicians on set to make sure all the formulas were right," she said.
In that respect, perhaps, Henson fell short of her goal.
"Katherine did talk to me about how she wants to help people fall in love with numbers the way she loves numbers," she said."Her passion for math reminded me of how I light up when people ask me about acting. Her eyes danced the way mine dance."
Johnson spent some of her career as a teacher, and Henson attributes her own lack of enthusiasm for math to not having had that kind of teacher.
"I realised that, if I had a teacher like that when I was in school, then I could have been a rocket scientist," Henson said."No one ever said to me, 'You can't do math because you're a girl,' but there was an understanding that math and science were for boys."
Johnson, Vaughan and Jackson faced a double barrier, of course, being both female and black.
"There's a scene where a cop stops the women," Henson said."It's so powerful. You can feel the audience brace themselves. What's beautiful about that scene is that you see someone unlearn racism right before your eyes.
"It proves that your perception can change in a matter of minutes," she said."This man literally saw that these women's lives mattered to the great space race. That negativity he was about to spew on them shifted in a blink of an eye."
Henson would like to see that message spread.
"As a human race, we need to get back to some goal that we can all focus on," she said."I think the world would be more balanced."
Henson was born in Washington, where her mother was a corporate manager and her father a janitor and metal fabricator. After graduating from Howard University, she started her career with guest roles on television.
Her first real opportunities came on the big screen, however, first as Yvette in John Singleton's Baby Boy (2001) and then as the prostitute-turned-singer Shug in Hustle & Flow (2005), which spurred talk of an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress.
That nomination came her way with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), and she went on to such films as The Karate Kid (2010), Date Night (2010) and Think Like a Man (2012).
It took a return to the small screen to play Cookie Lyon in Lee Daniels' 'Empire,' however, to make her a bankable star and to confront her with another hazard: being typecast as a ruthless, Machiavellian business executive.
"I love Cookie with all my heart," Henson said,"but I don't want people to see me as only Cookie. Please give me an opportunity, again and again, to prove that I'm a trained artist."
Katherine Johnson is one such role, and Henson is always on the lookout for others. As an African-American actress, she's frequently asked about diversity in Hollywood and the lack of powerful roles for women ” but her patience for such questions is limited.
"That's why I loved talking to Katherine or my grandmother," she explained."They didn't wallow in the muck and complain. Yes, they marched when there was an injustice. At some point they also said, 'This is what it is. Put your head down and get to work, because your hard work is going to open doors for someone else down the road.'"
As far as Hollywood goes, Henson doesn't have a personal axe to grind ”"Hollywood has been damn good to me," she said ” but she feels that the talk of diversity is too limited.
"The first thing you jump to is black and white," she said."I think, when you talk about diversity, we should also talk about in front of and behind the camera, people with disabilities.
"We're just scratching the surface with true diversity," Henson concluded."The problem is, we think so small."