Taraji Interview

[consentida]

I found this at MonthyCalendar.com....so I thought you guys might like it.


Taraji Henson: Making Her Dreams Come True
By Deardra Shuler


Contractors were working on Taraji Henson’s home the day of our interview. Her house of one year, symbolizes how far she has come since her childhood days of growing up in a working class neighborhood in Washington, D.C. “D.C. has changed a lot since I was a kid. These days, they are taking all the projects and changing them into condos. My old neighborhood now, like many other neighborhoods in cities across America, is undergoing gentrification. D.C., Blacks had the opportunity to take advantage of the housing programs at one time but so few did. Blacks actually lived near the water at that time. Now, whites are rapidly buying it up and selling it as waterfront property. I remember they had all kinds of housing programs. HUD was practically giving the money away, but many people in the hood, just didn’t apply for it,” said the young twenty-something actress.

Taraji remembers how drugs broke the spirit of the black communities in D.C. “Unfortunately, too many fell victim, to the Crack the government brought into our neighborhoods,” reminisces Henson. “What is really sad is that those that had property but were hooked on Crack, ended up selling their property for a Crack fix and sold out far too cheaply. They could have gotten as much as a million dollars for their property. From what people have told me, Crack is a different kind of addiction. Using Crack is not like having a drink or smoking marijuana. It’s an addiction that causes the body to literally crave it. I hear people say, that those on Crack are always chasing after that first high, yet they never do get it again.”

Taraji volunteers her time to work with children and has long since come to realize that media often projects an illusion, disguising the face of the truly impoverished. “I try to do outreach for kids. Joe Torres hosts this celebrity basketball tournament fundraiser every summer. One year when I attended the tournament, Coolio was there. You know, rappers travel the globe and get to see a lot of the world. One thing that sticks out in my mind that Coolio said to the kids at the tournament was that they should not see poverty as having a “black” face. He told them that many of the poor who have no food and are at extreme poverty levels wear a “white” face. He said, “…many of these whites are far worst off than any black is. Some of these whites are literally eating crumbs off the floor.” “Though many of these black kids hold to the mindset that poverty only comes in “black face” and think they are poor and will always be poor. The truth is poverty comes in many complexions.”

Henson is best known for her role as Yvette in the Columbia Pictures film, “Baby Boy,” featuring Tyrese and Snoop Dogg and written, produced, and directed by John Singleton. “Baby Boy was a movie about a young man coming of age. In black culture we tend to relate to each other that way. People often say: “What’s up, Baby Boy?” In Black culture there are many homes without a father. Many young men are raised by their mothers. Personally, I think in homes where men are raised by women, they take on a lot of the female characteristics and traits. I am not talking about being gay. It’s not about being gay. I am talking about men raised in single parent homes who tend to take on a female mentality so to speak, and act and react emotionally. I’m talking about female run homes where no men came into the family and taught boys how to be men. There was no man to say to them, “This is how you treat women.” I am a single Mom and I see how it is. I can teach my son rules. I can teach him how to love people, live right and do right but at the same time, I am not a man. So, I can’t teach him how to be a man because I have never been a man. Men think differently. Men raised by men, think objectively and logically. My ex-husband was raised by a woman and I could see those female traits in him by the way he reacted emotionally and thought it was OK to beat women. He had no father to teach him you don’t do that, to teach him to respect women, to teach him control.”

A Howard University graduate, Taraji earned her BA in Acting, and took off for LA, the land of big dreams and starry eyes. “I moved out to California seven years ago with $700 in my pocket, my child, and a dream. I felt in my heart that this was my calling. I worked in a CPA firm my first two years out here. I knew how to get a job. I was filing, doing secretarial work and answering phones. I didn’t get acting jobs right away. I started thinking why did I come out here. But here it is, five years later, and I am living in a house, where I can look out of my window and see the building where I used to work in that CPA firm,” reflects Henson. “I believed. There was something deep down inside of me that knew that that CPA firm was not the end for me.” As it turned out Taraji was right and her world turned around when she met her manager, Vincent Cirrincione, who believed in her as much as she believed in herself. He immediately booked jobs for her.

Presently, Taraji is starring on the Lifetime network show, “The Division.” Henson plays the character of Raina Washington, a young uniformed cop, who was promoted into the detective division as a homicide inspector.

During her 7 year career Taraji has co-starred in several TV programs, including: “Murder She Wrote,” “The Last Free Man,” “Satan’s School for Girls”,” ER,” “Felicity,” “Strong Medicine,” “Smart Guy” and “Sister, Sister.” She has played opposite Angela Lansbury, Phylicia Rashad, Shannen Doherty and Kate Jackson. “One day, I want to do a role in which I play Diana Ross. I want to play the real version of Diana Ross not the cleaned up version. We all have good and bad within us and in the end reap the karma we sow,” claims the diminutive star.

Taraji enjoys candle making, dancing and reading and seems to have found the recipe that has added the spice in her life she is presently enjoying. “I believe, whatever you put out into the universe you get back,” says Henson. “If you put out negative energy that is what will come to you. That will be your world. If you put out love that is what you get back. I think life is just as simple as that.”

[MovieHuntress17]

Very interesting,ty 4 postin!

[maria1986]

Thanks for posting!...that's a great pic of her...

[bananasplit]

Thanks for posting!

[Rhiannon]

cool

[InspectorExstead]

Thanks for posting that article. I loove that picture of her (why'd she have to cut her hair?)

[bananasplit]

Originally posted by InspectorExstead
Thanks for posting that article. I loove that picture of her (why'd she have to cut her hair?)

Now that I see that picture and how she looks now she looks Sso much better then then she does now.

[isiahthomas]

That's a good interview. I'm a fan of her's. When i first saw her in Baby Boy, i was hooked ever since. I like her eyes & i think she's attractive. She's gonna be in the upcoming movies Hustle & Flow with Terrence Howard, Anthony Anderson, Ludacris & Four Brothers with Mark Wahlberg, Tyrese, Andre of rap group Outkast. Hustle & Flow comes out July 13th. Four Brothers comes out August 12th. It looks like she plays a crackhead in Hustle & Flow. I think she's Terrence's lover in the movie. John Singleton who directed her in Baby Boy is also the director of Four Brothers & he produced Hustle & Flow. I saw her & Tyrese kissing in the previews for Four Brothers. She was Tyrese's woman in Baby Boy movie. I saw her in Hair Show movie with Monique & Kellita Smith. That's a funny movie. I can see her playing Diana Ross in a movie about Diana's life. Taraji kinda looks like Diana.