Taraji P. Henson On Crushing The Singing In ‘Color Purple’ And At The Oscars; Plus, The ‘Empire’ Cookie Lyon Spinoff That Crumbled – The Actor’s Side

Taraji P. Henson was an Emmy nominee over the weekend, has been nominated for Oscars, won 11 Image Awards, won a SAG Award, Golden Globes — you name it. That is why it is a little surprising she was somewhat unsure if she was the right actor to take on Shug Avery in the new movie musical The Color Purple, adapted from the hit Broadway musical.

In fact, Henson had the opportunity to play the part on Broadway at one time but turned it down, sure that her voice was not trained to handle eight performances a week. Fate has intervened though, and now she simply crushes it on screen, a surprise to some who didn’t know her musical side.

That side first popped up publicly with her performance of eventual Oscar-winning song “It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp” from 2005’s Hustle & Flow, the first time she got to co-star with Terence Howard. The second of course was as the iconic Cookie Lyon in the Fox series Empire, which ran from 2015-2020; there was even talk about a spinoff for Henson at one time. Henson also showed her singing chops in NBC’s Annie Live!, in which she played Miss Hannigan.

Henson joins me for this special Monday edition of my Deadline video series The Actor’s Side, where we talk about all of this and much much more in a very lively and fun interview.

To watch our conversation and to get the “actor’s side” from Taraji P. Henson, watch the video above.