The Pioneer
The frontier and an appetite for the unknown, goes first.
Taraji P. Henson earns The Pioneer designation by treating inward territory as the frontier worth charting. Her month-long solo pilgrimage to Bali, dry, plant-based, and spiritually structured, was no retreat from difficulty but a deliberate self-led reformation.
“Yeah, like I said, it's something that I could always do, but I just hadn't been challenged to do it until Annie. I did a live version of Annie for NBC. And I think people were like, oh, wow, she really can sing because people kept saying, but you can sing. You sang, it's hard out here for a pimp and hustle and flow.”
“The camera's gonna pick it up and the people will be moved. So it's not like theater. You don't have to do much because the camera's right there picking everything up. So John Singleton taught me about my eyes when I first did baby boy and he was like, Taraji, you don't, because I was coming from theater.”
“And it worked And it's just beautiful. And we were just a great thing to be with a group of people who have humility. You understand what I mean? Who realizes that this is really a blessing and understands the task at hand.”
“It did because when I first was cast, I was told I only had to hum and the song wasn't there. And then all of a sudden, oh, the song is in. And I'm like, what? Because it's jazz, and jazz is tricky. My character work more because that's what sugar is. She is jazzy. She's improvisational. You don't know what she's gone.”
Angie Martinez IRL: “IRL Take Aways: Taraji P Henson is back from Bali!”
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