Taraji P. Henson

Born on September 11, 1970 in the US capital, Taraji Penda Henson is the daughter of a humble couple, made up of a department store manager and a doorman. Her name is made up of Swahili words meaning ‘hope’ (Taraji) and ‘love’ (Penda), and she is the granddaughter of Matthew Henson, one of the explorers who discovered the geographic North Pole. She grew up in Washington DC, and although she was always bitten by the acting bug, when it came time for her to go to university she initially opted for other paths. She tried to study Electrical Engineering at Carolina, but she failed the entrance exam. That is how she ended up studying acting at Howard University, a Washington institution historically aimed at black students.

In 1995, Henson gave birth to their only son: Marcel. But two years later, in 1997, the boy’s father, MJ, was murdered under mysterious circumstances. Despite everything, she is a very positive person. She “she Loves whenever you can, she dances like no one is watching, travels, eats, and tries new foods. You never know what awaits you or the time you have left”, said the actress. After hiring an agent, she began playing small roles in television series, such as ER , This Boy is a Genius and Felicity . She was also secondary in the TV movie Satan School -Where she was a member of a satanic sect- and The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, in which she had a small appearance as a committed student.

His first major role came at the hands of African-American John Singleton , who hired him to co -star in Baby Boy , with Tyrese Gibson . He played a tenacious woman who tried to get her boyfriend to settle down and stay with her and her mutual child, but he was a jerk who refused to grow up. Her experience was so pleasant that she insisted on repeating Singleton’s command in Four Brothers , despite the brevity of her role, as the wife of one of the protagonists. Her success came with Hustle & Flow, where she was a pregnant prostitute. The film won an Oscar, in the category of best song, for ‘It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp’, whose chorus was sung by Henson herself.

The actress played a very small role in Hot Aces —she was a murderer trying to kill a witness in a trial against a mobster—and did a big job in Talk to Me , where she played the girlfriend of an ex-inmate who was a successful radio host. . She later had significant roles in two lawyer series, Boston Legal , in which she was one of the lawyers at the firm where the action takes place, and in Eli Stone , where she played a medical student who had an affair with a lawyer. When David Fincheroffered to play the adoptive mother of the protagonist, she was pleasantly surprised. “I screamed and jumped like I won the lottery.” And that she did not imagine that the film would mean her definitive consecration, and she would be nominated for an Oscar for her work.