Taraji P. Henson makes the effort of staying civil visible without asking for our pity. We value her restraint, especially when the writing is less patient, but would welcome fewer characters required to keep everyone else in order.
Fi1m perspective
In Hidden Figures (2016), Taraji P. Henson keeps Katherine G. Johnson civil while the humiliations accumulate. We were moved by the effort of that restraint, because she lets the frustration register without making it Katherine's only distinguishing feature. When the confrontations become more emphatic, we understand how much she has already held back. Director Theodore Melfi benefits from her ability to make those confrontations feel earned. The dialogue sometimes explains what we have already understood, but Henson keeps Katherine recognisable as a person when the script wants her to deliver a lesson.
Her breakthrough as Yvette in Baby Boy (2001) led into a career often spent giving other characters support or a conscience. Queenie, the caregiver in David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), belongs to that pattern of casting. It is useful work, with a built-in risk of being taken for granted. Cookie Lyon in Empire (2015–2020) put her in a lead television role. We prefer that sort of opportunity to the assumption that she will always be available to steady somebody else.
In Jonathan Nolan's Person of Interest (2011), she makes the steadying role count. Jim Caviezel initially gives John Reese so little visible inner life that Henson's detective Joss Carter has more than the usual supporting work to do. She gives the surveillance thriller someone whose judgement we can take seriously, supplying the moral weight missing from its taciturn lead. That matters in a programme which begins with a case-of-the-week structure and gradually becomes stranger. We recommend it with a warning about that formula, rather than any doubt about what she brings to it.
She still needs better writing than some of her vehicles provide. The weak direction and scripting of Proud Mary (2018) are a useful caution against treating a lead role as an opportunity in itself. Nor do we need every Henson character to be resilient, reasonable and responsible for somebody else's improvement. There is more to her than making difficult circumstances bearable. Start with Hidden Figures, allowing for dialogue that is less subtle than she is.
Biography
Taraji P. Henson is an American actress and singer. She studied acting at Howard University, graduating in 1995, and began her career with guest roles on television series before her breakthrough in the film Baby Boy (2001).
Henson received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). She is known for portraying Joss Carter in the series Person of Interest (2011–2013) and Katherine Johnson in Hidden Figures (2016), as well as Cookie Lyon in Empire (2015–2020).
