Taraji P. Henson

Taraji P. Henson (born September 11, 1970, Washington, D.C., U.S.) is an American actress who was best known for playing strong female characters, notably Loretha (“Cookie”) Lyon in the television drama Empire (2015–20).

Henson grew up in Washington, D.C., and in Oxon Hill, Maryland, where she and her divorced mother moved. She entered North Carolina A&T State University to pursue a degree in electrical engineering but dropped out after failing a math class. She held several temporary jobs, including one for the Department of Defense at the Pentagon. Following her graduation (1995) in theatre from Howard University, she moved to Los Angeles with her infant son. She was soon appearing on TV, notably in recurring roles as a police inspector on the cop show The Division (2002–04) and as an associate lawyer on Boston Legal (2007–08). Henson garnered particular attention for her portrayal of Detective Joss Carter in the TV crime series Person of Interest (2011–13). Fans expressed grief—and even anger—when Carter, that show’s moral touchstone for honesty and integrity, was killed in a shoot-out with a crooked cop during season three.

During this time, Henson also acted in film. In 1998 she made her big-screen debut in Streetwise, and her breakthrough movie roles came in John Singleton’s Baby Boy (2001), as the central character’s much-put-upon girlfriend, and Hustle & Flow (2005), as the pregnant prostitute Shug, opposite Terrence Howard, whom she later demanded be hired to play the role of Lucious Lyon, the ex-husband of her character on Empire. (She also sang backup vocals on the latter movie’s Academy Award-winning song, “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp.”) Henson earned an Oscar nomination in 2009 for best actress in a supporting role for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), in which she portrayed Queenie, the title character’s nurturing mother figure. Her other films included Talk to Me (2007), Not Easily Broken and I Can Do Bad All by Myself (both 2009), No Good Deed (2014), and Term Life (2016).

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In Hidden Figures (2016) Henson was cast as Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who played a key role at NASA in the 1960s. She then starred in the thrillers Proud Mary, portraying a hit woman, and Tyler Perry’s Acrimony (both 2018), in which she appeared as a betrayed and vengeful wife. Henson was then cast as a sports agent who, after hitting her head, can hear men’s thoughts in What Men Want (2019), a remake of the comedy What Women Want (2000). Later in 2019 she appeared in The Best of Enemies, portraying civil rights activist Ann Atwater, who developed an unlikely friendship with C.P. Ellis, a leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

In 2015 Henson began starring in the musical TV drama Empire, playing the flashy and fiercely outspoken Loretha (“Cookie”) Lyon. In the premiere episode, Cookie emerges from prison—wearing a white fur coat and a minidress in one of her signature animal prints—having served 17 years for drug trafficking. She returns to her ex-husband and their three sons demanding her share of the family’s hip-hop music empire, which was initially funded with her drug money. Critics praised Henson for keeping the outrageous “tiger mom” Cookie from becoming a caricature, and in 2016 she won a Golden Globe for her performance. Empire’s sixth and final season, which aired in 2020, ended early because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Henson later appeared as Miss Hannigan in the TV movie Annie Live! (2021).