Taraji P. Henson’s closet is as boldly eclectic as her career. “I’m a mood dresser,” she tells Alexa over Zoom. “One day I may have on a baseball cap and some sweats, and the next day I may have on a full Schiaparelli look. Dressing up for me is like putting on a character.”
Henson’s latest alter ego is the benevolent and caring Bertha Holly in August Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” and it marks her long-awaited Broadway acting debut. In the play — which explores themes of displacement and self-discovery in 1911 Pittsburgh — Bertha owns a boardinghouse with her pragmatic, if sometimes prickly, husband, Seth, played by Cedric the Entertainer. Debbie Allen directs the revival.
Henson, 55, says she stands a tad straighter thanks to this cherished career first, and it’s not just because Bertha is the upright center of the play. Henson credits a key foundational element beneath Bertha’s homey dresses and aprons. “I have terrible posture,” she confesses. “I wear a corset that makes me stand erect.”
The play, which debuted on Broadway in 1988, is one chapter in Wilson’s 10-play cycle about the Black experience in America. Deep into it, Bertha, who’s kept busy baking biscuits and listening to boarders, has a memorable moment, sharing advice for weathering life’s ups and downs: “All you need in the world,” she loudly declares, “is love and laughter.”
When Henson delivers this line, her eyes bright, she lets out a hearty laugh to underscore the playwright’s message. It’s a joyful noise — one that comes easily, as naturally as breathing.
“I probably should have been a comedian,” Henson says. “Humor is something that I do. People go, ‘Oh, you look so young. Why?’ I laugh a lot. I laugh at myself. I don’t take myself seriously. Life is to be enjoyed, and love and laughter are free.”
Henson states that emphatically. Just as firmly, she believes that milestones — both personal and professional — arrive precisely when they’re supposed to.
Since breaking into films in 1998’s “Streetwise,” playing a single-mom hairdresser, Henson has notched a rich roster of TV and movie roles. Among them: Queenie, the caretaker in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” which earned her an Oscar nomination, ex-con turned music mogul Cookie Lyon in “Empire,” which won her a Golden Globe and two Emmy nods, the brilliant but undervalued NASA human computer Katherine Johnson in “Hidden Figures” and the crooked orphanage overseer Miss Hannigan on NBC’s “Annie Live!” that showed off her singing voice. Emmy noms also came for her Lifetime movie “Taken From Me: The Tiff-any Rubin Story” and “Abbott Elementary.”
Now, it’s Broadway o’clock for Henson. Even before she earned a bachelor’s degree in drama at Howard University in Washington, DC, New York’s storied Theater District stages have beckoned. “The timing was perfect for me right now for Broadway,” she says. “I didn’t have anything on my schedule that would get in the way, and that’s been the case my entire career. Every time there was something for me to come to Broadway, I was working. I couldn’t do it.”
During the show’s run at the Barrymore Theatre through July 26, the Los Angeles-
based Henson is living in a Manhattan apartment with her French bulldogs, Buddha and Zen. The pups are acclimating to the city, and she’s adjusting to the taxing pace of eight shows a week. “It’s so demanding, it’s like school. I’m still getting used to the schedule,” she says, hushing the dogs, who are now growling because a box fell and made a racket. “They’re two little Frenchies who think they’re Rottweilers.”
But she wouldn’t trade the grueling grind for anything. “I feel like Bertha chose me, because I didn’t look for it,” she continues. “No, it came to me. I trained in theater, and onstage, I feel really safe and comfortable.”
She’s also feeling déjà vu: Henson previously performed in a 2013 reading of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” at the Greene Space at WNYC, playing the independent, noncommittal Molly under the direction of Allen’s sister, Phylicia Rashad. Then, there’s Cedric the Entertainer. She had practice playing his wife in the 2011 rom-com “Larry Crowne.” “We have fun,” she says. “The chemistry is already there.”
The same holds for Allen. “Debbie has been instrumental, an angel, my entire career,” says Henson. In addition to directing multiple episodes of “Empire,” Allen and Henson acted together 23 years ago in the Lifetime TV police procedural “The Division.” “I played a cop in San Francisco,” Henson says. “Debbie played my lesbian mom.”
With the mention of screen moms, the subject of Mother’s Day comes up; it’s a holiday the star cherishes. Henson was a junior at Howard University when she got pregnant, going into labor on Mother’s Day of 1994. She held her son, Marcell Johnson (now 31), in her arms as she received her college diploma.
“I come from a line of incredible mothers,” says Henson, name-checking her mom, Bernice Gordon, and grandma, Patsie Ballard. “I’m blessed to say that my grandmother just turned 102. She’s mad because we had to have her stop driving.”
The actor is incredibly close with both women, even bringing them as her dates to the Academy Awards in 2009.
“My grandmother is coming to the play — not the opening. My family wants to come together, so they’re figuring that out,” Henson says. “There will probably be a caravan. My mom had me flip my phone camera around and show her my apartment. She said, ‘Oh yeah, we can move that table and put out an air mattress.’”
Henson grew up in the DC area; her parents divorced when she was 2. Her mom’s urging to keep moving forward has been useful during rough times.
“My mother is a very strong woman. She showed me by example every day,” says Henson. “She just never gave up. She didn’t complain. I caught her crying one time. She probably thought I was asleep, but I saw her overwhelmed with the stack of bills, and wiping tears.
“She remembers me saying ‘Mom, one day I’m gonna be real rich. You’re not gonna have to worry.’ [But] my mother never needed me to pay one bill for her. To this day, she barely accepts money from me.”
One of Henson’s favorite Mother’s Day memories dates back more than two decades, when she and Marcell were living in Glendale, Calif. “I just remember the first time when he was aware of Mother’s Day. He was 9 or 10,” she says. “He begged me — could he walk to the store by himself to get a gift?”
A protective single mom, Henson reluctantly agreed. But she kept a close eye on her son from the window, watching anxiously until he returned, holding a bouquet in his hands. “I had to duck and hide,” she says of turning to her acting chops in the moment. “I pretended to be surprised when he brought me flowers.”
Marcell was at his mom’s side when she was up for an Emmy for “Empire” in 2015. He was there four years later when she received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. “He was on some episodes of ‘Empire’ with me,” she says. “He played some random characters.
“He’s an artist,” the proud mom adds. “But he and I are polar opposites. He has lots of personality, but he’s not the type to be in front of the camera. He’s more technical and likes being behind the scenes. He’s good at postproduction sound. He does music so he can operate the board.”
Henson’s pursuits and passions also go beyond acting.
Among her proudest endeavors is her work to raise mental health awareness in the Black community through the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation. She founded it in 2018 and named it after her father, who struggled with psychological concerns before he died in 2006.
Henson is savoring the power of creative control throughout her life. She and her production company, TPH Entertainment, will executive produce two new films for Lifetime, in partnership with Fox Entertainment Studios. TPH by Taraji is her hair and skin-care line. “I just acquired that company. I own it 100 percent,” the entrepreneur says proudly. She can toast that success with her Seven Daughters x Taraji wine collab, then share it all on Instagram, along with her playful #TPHStreetStyle snaps.
That wine, by the way, may come in handy at “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” where the cast has initiated a celebratory tradition. “It’s called ‘Shots on Saturday,’ ‘SOS,’ and they do it in my room,” Henson says. “The last time they gave me this Japanese whisky, which was really good.”
There’s also a preshow ritual five minutes before performances. “We have a prayer circle,” she says. “When it was my time to lead it, I didn’t ask God for anything. I just thanked him.”
Photographer: Victoria Will; Editor: Alev Aktar; Stylist: Anahita Moussavian; Photo Editor: Jessica Hober; Talent Booker: Patty Adams Martinez; Hair: Tym Wallace at Mastermind MGMT; Makeup: Saisha Beecham using Armani Beauty and Skin1004; Manicure: Temeka Jackson at A-Frame Agency using Daily Charme Platinum Chrome; Manicure Assistant: Elizabeth Garcia using OPI; Production Designer: Linden Elstran; Lighting Director: David Jaffe; Photo Assistants: Dylan Garcia, Tessa Dillman; Digital Tech: Dustin Betterly; Fashion Assistant: Dominic Turiczek; On-set Assistant: Yared Glicksman, Contributing Editor: Serena French
