What Taraji Wants!

Star of award-winning TV series Empire and new movie What Men Want, Taraji P Henson tells Sophie Goddard how she battled her way to success, and why age hasn’t stopped her being a bankable leading lady

‘A man hit me on the plane the other day,’ Taraji P Henson recounts, when asked how she’s coping with fame. ‘They think they know you and come and grab you. But Cookie’s a character and I’m Taraji, so I’m like, “Please don’t touch me!”’ she mock-shrieks. ‘I didn’t want to be that person, but now my security flies with me in first...’

The ‘Cookie’ Henson is referring to is the ex-drug-dealing matriarch of Sky Atlantic’s award-winning series Empire, whom she has played since 2015. Dubbed ‘the black Dynasty’, the show’s first season broke records with a cool 17.6 million viewers and has earned Henson a Golden Globe win and an Emmy nomination, as well as a Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series – the first female African-American to do so.

But Henson is no new kid on the block. After cutting her teeth as an extra on 90s TV shows such as Saved By The Bell, she went on to star alongside everyone from Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt (her role in 2008’s The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button landed her an Oscar nomination) to Kevin Hart, Idris Elba and Octavia Spencer (in the Oscar- and Golden Globe-nominated Hidden Figures).