Taraji P. Henson: from Hustle & Flow to Fincher and Pitt

Despite a career in acting that dates back more than a decade, D.C.-born actress Taraji P. Henson exudes the kind of humble graciousness of someone who’s on the verge of getting her first big break.

In truth, her breakthrough performance happened almost four years ago when she starred as a pregnant working girl in Craig Brewer’s gritty and critically acclaimed drama Hustle & Flow, a performance that netted her industry praise and a slew of acting accolades, including a BET Award, Black Reel Award and Image Award.

She’s since gone on to star in Four Brothers, Smokin’ Aces, Talk To Me and Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys, not to mention performing the Oscar-winning song “It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp” with Three6Mafia at the 2006 Academy Awards.

But David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is easily her highest-profile gig yet. Directed by the man behind powerhouse films Fight Club, Se7en and Zodiac, it stars Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton and trades in Fincher calling cards – cynicism and urban ennui – for bold sentimentality and romance in this love story about a man (Brad Pitt) who was born old and is aging backwards. The only constant in Benjamin’s unusual, sundry life is his adoptive mother, Queenie, played with warmth and tenacity by Henson, who credits Hustle & Flow with getting her foot in the door.

“Lorraine Mayfield, the casting director, saw me in Hustle & Flow two years prior to Benjamin Button being packaged,” Henson told Cineplex.com while in Toronto recently. “She said that when she was in the theatre watching [the movie] she called [David] Fincher and was like, “I found Queenie.”

Despite falling in love with the story and killing the audition – Henson’s first read-through brought Mayfield to tears – her years in the fickle business taught her to be skeptical until the ink has dried. In fact, she was so certain the part would go to someone else that she was initially irked when the meeting with Fincher coincided with her other weekend plan – a blow-out garage sale.

“I’m telling my agent, ‘They don’t want me. You know they’re gonna go with a name.’ So I’m kicking and screaming, upset that I gotta cancel my garage sale. But then I get there Saturday to Fincher’s office and there’s nobody there. It’s me, Fincher and Lorraine Mayfield – that’s when I started taking it seriously.”

Needless to say, Henson impressed Fincher and won the part. But when asked if she was nervous about working with a director known for being demanding, uncompromising and fiercely outspoken, she reveals an unexpected connection.

“He met himself in me,” she admitted. “I’m a perfectionist. I’m my own worst critic. That’s where David and I… It’s very rare in feature film where you get a chance to not rush. There was not one moment in that film that was rushed. It’s very rare that you can take your time and do as many takes as you want to get it as perfect as you would like. I thought that was a beautiful process.”

And part of said process also included hours spent in the makeup chair to transform her into Queenie, the no-nonsense, buttoned-up matriarch who runs an old age home, on the stairs of which she literally stumbles upon an abandoned baby, played from late adolescence to extremely old age by Brad Pitt.

Though starring as Pitt’s mother may not have been exactly how Henson envisioned her ideal role alongside one of Hollywood’s beautiful people, she says his stellar performance – physically limited to above-the-neck movements in the movie’s first half – motivated her to step it up.

“It was a little intimidating at first but I always saw myself with the likes of great actors. I work well under pressure but the only pressure was in my head, you know? So, I had to bring my A-game and I loved that challenge. I’m only excited when it’s a challenge – if it’s too easy, I don’t want to do it.”

Henson –who knows a thing or two about challenges after famously coming to Hollywood with only $700 in her pocket and her young son on her arm – may have faced her biggest hardship last year when she lost her father. But reflecting on his passing, she sees his death as part of a greater plan and drew from her grief for the role of Queenie.

“It was almost like that had to happen to make me understand the concept of a film like this. Not that I wouldn’t be able to go there…but it just helped bring more depth for me. My character Queenie deals with death, she’s surrounded by death. My father died on me. I was in the room when they were screaming ‘code blue’. You live life but you understand it looking at it backwards. Filming this, a film that deals with mortality, life and death, actually helped me with getting over my father’s death. Everything has a divine order, I think.”

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button opens in Cineplex Entertainment theatres December 25.