December 24, 2008 @ 10:40 am

NOW: Taraji P. Henson

Serena Kim

Taraji P. Henson doesn't want to hear your Oscar predictions

With its bronze domes that graze the sky and sleek art-deco architecture, L.A.’s Griffith Observatory has long been a place where flesh-and-blood stars commune with super-novas. Rebel Without a Cause (Warner Bros., 1955) was filmed here,  as was The Terminator (Orion, 1984). Today a rising star is ambling around the observatory’s white roof, marveling at the panoramic view of the basin below. It’s obscured by a fluffy cloud of smog. 

“It looks purple, doesn’t it?” Taraji P. Henson asks in her distinctively high, clear voice.

More goofy M.I.L.F. than diva, Henson goes unrecognized by the khaki-sporting French tourists clustered around the cupola. Oversized Chloé shades hide her famously express-ive eyes. Nobody is yelling, It’s hard out here for a pimp! or Hey, it’s Yvette from Baby Boy!—the kind of comments Henson often hears when recognized on the street.

Though she’s appeared on television and in the theater, Henson, who nailed her role in 2005’s Hustle & Flow (Paramount) and blossomed in 2007’s Talk to Me (Focus) is best known for her film work. She still drives her son, Marcel Johnson, 14, to his basketball games without much harassment. But with starring roles in two holiday movies—David Fincher’s adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Paramount) and Hurricane Season (MGM) with Forest Whitaker—Henson is blasting into the stratosphere. In Benjamin Button, which hits theaters nationwide on Christmas Day, she stars as Brad Pitt’s aging mother, a central role that has industry gums flapping. “She’s in a movie that people are saying is an Oscar contender and could be one of the most successful films of the year,” says Sanaa Lathan, her friend and co-star in Tyler Perry’s recent The Family That Preys (Lionsgate). 

Director John Singleton, who has worked often with Henson, goes a step further: “They say she’s in Oscar contention.” But Henson demurs. “I really don’t like to think about the Oscars, because I’ve been hearing that since my very first movie, Baby Boy,” she says, aglow in a green and white zebra-striped Veronica M. sundress and sparkly metallic flip-flops. “If God sees it in my future to win, then that’s incredible because that means I’ve touched that many people. But I can’t think about it. What if it doesn’t happen? I leave it up to the stars.”

Those stars began to align approximately two years ago when casting director Laray Mayfield was mesmerized by Henson’s sad-eyed portrayal of pregnant prostitute Shug in Hustle & Flow. “I couldn’t take my eyes off of her,” Mayfield says in a deep rasp. “And when she wasn’t in the scene, I missed her. That’s exactly what you want from a mother— someone who makes you feel secure when they’re there, and when they’re gone, you miss them.”

When Henson showed up at Mayfield’s Hollywood office for her Benjamin Buttonaudition in character—long linen skirt,  white blouse, hair pulled back—he was blown away. “Once she started with the reading, I lost it,” says Mayfield. “I started sobbing. It was beautiful.”

From the observatory, the block letters of the Hollywood sign are almost tangible, nestled among the chaparral-covered hillside. The beginning of Henson’s Hollywood dream included a lot of rejection and uncertainty. She wondered if she’d made a mistake dragging her then 1-year-old far away from her family, her hometown, everything she knew and loved. “I used to hike here at Griffith Park to this one rock,” she says. “It was my peaceful place. It feels like you’re closer to God in some way.”

Hard prayer? Hard work? Either or both — it paid off. At 38, Henson still sits on that rock, but she’s also sittin’ on top of the world. Her son, a precocious private school– educated hip hop fan, is her best friend. “He’s had to deal with life in a way that a lot of young kids haven’t yet,” says Henson. “His dad was murdered when Marcel was 9, and then my dad died, who was like his second dad.” Marcel’s father, William Lamar Johnson, a government employee, was stabbed in D.C. on his birthday by his girlfriend’s roommate in an altercation. He died the next day. Johnson and Henson weren’t a couple at the time of his death. “We would sit and weep about it,” says Henson. “Do I mourn for him? Absolutely. I wish my son had his dad. But sometimes things line up and they have to happen and we don’t know why.”

Taraji’s own father, Boris, was terminally ill when the 2005 Academy Award nominations were announced, but he still strained to pay attention, hoping his daughter’s name would be mentioned for her performance in Hustle & Flow. “When I called him and said I wasn’t nominated but that I get to sing at the Oscars, he was happy, but he was sad. He wanted to see it. He’d been telling me since I was so little, ‘You gonna win an Oscar!’ He just said to me, ‘You know sometimes it’s hard for us like that.’”

As Boris lay dying, Taraji kept vigil at his deathbed, taking turns with her stepmother. “He was pulling at all the wires he was connected to,” she says. “I just looked at him and whispered to him, ‘Daddy, if you’re in pain, let go.’ There was a split second of clarity, and he looked at me. Less than 10 minutes later, he was gone.” Boris Henson wouldn’t see his daughter sing “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” with Three 6 Mafia at the Academy Awards just weeks later. “But I think he’s watching from above,” Henson says, her eyes now peaceful and warm, “and he’s probably pulling strings, too.”

Article tags: Brad Pitt, John Singleton, Sanaa Lathan, Taraji P. Henson, Terrence Howard, Tyler Perry, Tyrese 

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