The Oscar-nominee on Hollywood burnout, Black resilience and her Broadway debut in August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone
On a Wednesday evening in midtown New York, generations X through Z spill out of the Ethel Barrymore Theatre to cluster around the venue’s side stage door. They’re waiting for Taraji P Henson.
“I feel like I’m Cardi B on tour,” Henson jokes. When we talk over a video call this April, the actor is one week out from the opening night of her Broadway debut in the revival of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Throughout the show’s preview period, Henson has made an effort to make it out to street level after performances to shake hands, take pictures and sign playbills. “It’s good to see my fans like this, up close and personal,” she says.
Over the past 30 years, Henson has become a Hollywood mainstay for her thoughtful character work. She’s been a hip-hop soul star in Hustle & Flow, an ardent adoptive mother in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and a groundbreaking Nasa mathematician in Hidden Figures. She’s also a four-time Emmy-nominated, Golden Globe-winning, Oscar-nominated actor and a Tony-nominated producer. But Henson’s formal training is in theater, and it’s here she truly thrives. “I got that good Howard [University] training,” she says of her alma mater, where she studied drama in the 90s. “[I was] made for the stage.”
