Taraji P Henson Is Lensed By Sam Taylor Johnson In 'What Women Need' For Porter Edit January 18, 2019

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Taraji P Henson Is Lensed By Sam Taylor Johnson In 'What Women Need' For Porter Edit January 18, 2019

American talent Taraji Penda Henson covers the January 18, 2019 issue of Porter Edit. Tracy Taylor styles Henson in Alexander Wang, Iro, Stella McCartney, Maison Margiela, Proenza Schouler and more for ‘What Women Need’, lensed by Sam Taylor Johnson.

Eve Barlow conducts the brisk interview, opening with Henson’s role as Cookie Lyon in Fox’s ‘Empire’.

Despite the instant lovability of Cookie, the actress was initially reluctant to take the character on. On paper, she read like someone the audience would hate – a brash ex-convict – but then Henson saw an opportunity to change minds, including her own. “I stopped judging her,” she says. “We see somebody we don’t identify with and the first thing we do is judge, but all we’re put here to do is empathize. It’s my job as the actor to make the audience understand.” She references Charlize Theron in Monster: “We should’ve hated her. But she gave that woman humanity. An actor is supposed to conflict you. You’re supposed to be confused.” There’s a part of Cookie in Henson, too: she’s both a charmer and hustler. 

Older Women Make Major Progress In 2015 Emmy Award Nominations

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Anne is reading …

Emmy Awar Nominations: Full List of 2015 Emmy NomineesVariety

15 Of The Emmys’ 18 Leading Actress Nominees Are Over 35 Huffington Post

The 2015 Emmy Nominees are noteworthy in the women’s category for age diversity. In the category for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, Amy Schumer is the youngest at 34, and Lily Tomlin at 75 replaces Betty White as the oldest nominee in the category. White was nominated at 69 for ‘Golden Girls’ in 1991. Tomlin costars with Jane Fonda in the Netflix show ‘Grace and Frankie’.

Two African American women in their 40s are nominated for lead actress in a drama — Taraji P. Henson and Viola Davis). Davis said in a roundtable for The Hollywood Reporter, “I had never seen a 49-year-old, dark-skinned woman who is not a size two be a sexualized role in TV or film… I’m a sexual woman, but nothing in my career has ever identified me as a sexualized woman. I was the prototype of the ‘mommified’ role.”

Zeba Blay writes for Huff Po:

Hollywood perpetuates the straight male fantasy that every woman who is on screen, no matter her age or station in life, should be “fuckable” (in the eyes of white heterosexual male viewers). But this year’s Emmy nominees prove that pandering to that kind of audience is unnecessary and boring — there’s so much more out there. Davis doesn’t have to play the mom or the “Law & Order” judge just because she’s 49, and conversely Amy Schumer doesn’t have to play the dumb blonde type — instead, she can satirize it.

If substantial progress has been made on age and racial diversity, Variety reminds readers that only three women were nominated out of 23 in top writer-director categories. The Academy promoted this reality as a 60% increase in the number of women nominated, but Variety pans this fact “at a time when the market place for TV series is expanding rapidly.”