When I ask Taraji P. Henson what her biggest career goal is, I’m surprised that her answer is retirement. “Well, not retire all the way,” she reassures. “I will always work. I’m talking about the grind—feeling that I have to take an acting job. I really want to start enjoying the fruits of my labor more and be in a position where I can rent a yacht and call my family and be like, ‘Meet me in Spain.’”
After more than 20 years of hustle, the break would be well-deserved. Born in Washington, DC, Henson studied drama at Howard University, began acting in the late ’90s, and made her feature film debut in John Singleton’s Baby Boy in 2001. The cult classic introduced her to a wide audience (“from the great-grandkids all the way up to the great-grandmas”). Seven years later, she was nominated for an Oscar for her supporting role in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. But it was her role as Empire’s Cookie, the brazen matriarch of the Lyon family, that saw her make history. In 2015, she became the first Black woman to win the Critics Choice Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series. The following year, when she won the Golden Globe for best performance by an actress in a television drama series and the teleprompter rushed her to finish, she said, “Please wrap? Wait a minute. I waited 20 years for this. You gon’ wait.” More viral award-night moments may be yet to come: This December, she’ll star as Shug Avery in The Color Purple, a musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s classic novel.
Fresh-faced, with her hair in a bun and wearing that morning’s workout clothes, Henson affirms that she’s had “a pretty incredible” acting career thus far, but says that her priorities have shifted. In 2018, after struggling to find a therapist (“I wanted someone who looked like me and I couldn’t find them—it was like looking for a unicorn”), she founded the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation, named for her late father. The foundation works to destigmatize mental health care within the Black community through initiatives such as access to free therapy, a scholarship fund for Black therapists, and “wellness pods” at places like historically Black colleges and universities. “Acting put me on a platform, and I always thought that I was touching lives through acting, but this foundation is actually saving lives,” Henson says. “I’m grateful that acting led me to a larger life purpose.”
She finds a lot of her joy offscreen now. In addition to the foundation, she owns a hair and body care line, TPH by Taraji, that she launched in 2020. The company is just another way she hopes to inspire people to care for themselves: “Everything I do is [about] wellness from head to toe.” This year, she also made her Broadway debut as a producer of Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, a play that honors the “hidden figures” working in a Harlem braiding shop. “I thought it was going to be acting that brought me to Broadway, but look at life,” Henson says. “I was thinking too small, I guess.”
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On when she first realized the power of storytelling
“This may sound crazy because I’m 53, but I remember like it was yesterday. The first time I knew the power of art was in kindergarten, when I was chosen to sing for our graduation. I was a very rambunctious kid, full of energy and always the loudest one. I did something on that stage, and the entire audience laughed. I understood at that young age the power that I had from being center stage, and I fell in love with it.”
On filming The Color Purple
“I remember being on a set and looking around like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve never seen Black people look so beautiful.’ [The director Blitz Bazawule] took such great care and he allowed us to bring what we had to it. It wasn’t about trying to reinvent the wheel or trying to do what Oprah and [the original cast] did before us. He really allowed us to just make it our own. And that’s a scary thing to do because we’ve got big shoes to fill. I just think everyone came and showed up and understood how important this piece of literature is to our culture. We brought our hearts and our souls. We just left it on the set every day on this film, everybody. It was such a beautiful moment of my career.”
On manifesting a career in Hollywood
“I always saw myself being an A-list actor. That’s why I knew I couldn’t stay in DC. I always ask people who’ve left their home to come out here and make something of themselves, ‘Did you always feel like where you were was small?’ I would always feel like I wasn’t supposed to be there, like I had a bird’s-eye view from somewhere else. I always knew that in order to make my dreams come true, I had to leave.”
On her “only in Hollywood” story
“Only in Hollywood do you sing ‘It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp’ at the Oscars [from Hustle & Flow]. It’s the most prestigious audience in the world, and I’m up there singing about pimps and hoes.”
On keeping it real
“I like to peruse the aisles in Target and Walmart. Can I afford to have somebody go for me? Absolutely. But then it makes me disassociate from the humans that I have to play in real life. How’s that helping me in my work, if I’m never around humans? I’m not going to subject myself to isolation because of what I do. I’m a Virgo. I’d rather do it myself.”
On the spiritual nature of acting
“Sometimes I get healed in certain places because I portrayed a certain character. And it makes me go, ‘Oh, that’s why you chose that.’ Not that I’m a therapist, but art can be therapy if you allow it. You’re allowing these characters to use your body as a vessel.”
On broadening her focus
“There will always be a project that touches me, [but] I don’t want acting to be the way I make money. I want to make that shift, and I want it to happen before 60, because I have so much of the world that I want to see.”
Co-styled by Wayman + Micah; hair by Tym Wallace at Mastermind Mgmt; makeup by Saisha Beecham at Artists Management Co LA; manicure by Temeka Jackson at A-Frame Agency; set design by Bryan Porter at Owl and the Elephant; produced by Anthony Federici at Petty Cash Production.
A version of this article appears in the December 2023/January 2024 issue of ELLE.
This story is part of ELLE’s 2023 Women in Hollywood portfolio, our annual celebration of the women we loved watching this year. Click the link below for all the cover stories.
