All that anger I had, all that disappointment, all that bitterness, I ultimately laid it all aside and focused, instead, on the work. When I did that, my performance of Queenie became transformed into a spiritual awakening, not just for me but also the audiences who watched the film and cheered my performance. So many times, my costars, many of them elders in the industry and the kind of Hollywood divas who aren’t necessarily generous with compliments, would corner me on set, cup my chin, and say, “You really are something to see. You are it. You’re going to get an Academy nomination for this one.” Same with the cameramen. I’d be coming out of makeup or running my fingers over the goodies on the craft services table, and invariably one of them would sidle up next to me and say, “You’re killing it.” Even studio executives were flying in with news that my work had the Academy members buzzing. “It’s you,” one said. “They’re focused on you.”
I’d made Queenie—and, by extension, Taraji—remarkable, so much so that I got my first Academy Award nomination, for best supporting actress. I was sleepy and a tad drunk—the remnants of a good time had when I went out with my friend and fellow actress Sanaa Lathan—when my friends began calling with the good news. Going out had been Sanaa’s idea; she didn’t like hearing that I was anxious and pacing around in circles, waiting for the big announcement that was to take place first thing in the morning, before the sun did its slow rise above the horizon. “You need to go out, baby,” she chided after I revealed my anxiety. “You shouldn’t be in the house waiting for a call. You should be passed out and woken up to the call.”
“She’s right, Mom,” Marcell said, chiming in. “You need to go out. Just go.”
Pulling myself together, I put on a cute dress, some hot shoes, and some bright-red lipstick, kissed my son good night, linked arms with my friend, and headed to a club in Los Angeles, a spot next to Jerry’s Famous Deli on Beverly Boulevard. Sanaa and I made our own fun, giggling and talking and sipping pinot noir and flirting with some of the patrons there and dancing to our own beat. It was the absolute perfect elixir for my racked, jittery nerves.
A few hours later, I went to bed and fell into a deep sleep. I woke up, blurry eyed, to my ringing phone. It was five in the morning, and my manager was on the other end of the line, yapping incoherently in my ear. I knew from the excitement in his voice to look at the television. Sure enough, there was my name, flashing across the screen: Best Supporting Actress: Taraji P. Henson. I ran around in circles, muffling my screams to keep from waking my son; my dog, Uncle Willie, ran behind me in circles, every bit as excited as I.
The whirlwind of red carpets, media appearances, and international press conferences that would round out the Benjamin Button Oscar campaign was extraordinary, a spectacle of five-star glitter and glam. We were charged with drumming up as much publicity as we could to grab the attention of the voters responsible for picking the winners. Let me tell you: everything then was first class and five star, from the hotels and restaurants to the travel and the people, some of whom couldn’t have been bothered to see me when I was in the films with the primarily black casts, but who knew my name now that “Taraji P. Henson” was accompanied by “Oscar nominee.” I was happy to be there, happy to show up in my pretty gowns with my huge smile and promote the hell out of our movie. After all, I was proud of my work and quite pleased that the Academy had nominated me.
Still, I had to keep my ego in check. This is not an easy proposition in this industry, where people blowing smoke up your ass is social protocol designed specifically to get you high enough to believe your own hype and lose focus of the bigger picture. With a hungry baby bird back in Los Angeles, depending on me to put food in his mouth, keep a roof over his head, and make sure his school tuition was paid on time, I made a point of reminding myself that an Oscar or Emmy or any other fancy award I might earn for my performances, while nice, could never be my end game. They could open a few doors, but they’d guarantee neither success nor financial surplus, nor the meaty roles that stretch and honor the talent, particularly if you’re a black woman. Those pieces of metal cannot begin to speak for this gift God gave me and what it personally represents. Only the work does.
This is precisely why I wasn’t pressed when, while sitting in that Oscar audience, the cameras trained on my reaction, the announcer said, “And the winner of the Academy Award for best supporting actress is . . . Penélope Cruz!” I was happy for her and totally not sorry for me; my mother was by my side, my grandmother was a few rows back with my manager, Vincent, I was in a room full of my peers, I had on a slamming dress, my hair looked good, my makeup was gorgeous, I was a thousandaire, and I was having the time of my life. Completely unaware of this stance, Brad and his wife, Angelina Jolie, with whom I was sitting, reached over to me after my loss, worried that I might be upset. “Are you okay?” they kept asking.
“I’m fine,” I insisted. “Can I get some more wine?”
“Let’s go get a shot,” Angelina countered. Brad and Angie’s support for me during that entire awards season means more to me than they’ll ever know.
The day after the Oscar loss, everything was silent. There was nowhere to be. Nothing to do. My phone wasn’t ringing. It was as if the entire world had stopped spinning, and everyone who had been sticking a microphone in my face, calling my name, and begging me to stand in the bright lights had completely forgotten about me. I welcomed the solace; nothing made me happier than to take a beat to lay around the house in complete solitude. Still, I smirked just thinking about the hoopla—the farce of it all. On that quiet day, the only person to reach out to me was the director Tyler Perry, with whom I’d partied like it was 1999 at the Prince Oscar party the night before. He called to see how I was doing after the loss, but also to put your girl to work. His offer: a starring role in his 2009 movie I Can Do Bad All by Myself, in which I played April, a lounge singer who reluctantly becomes a surrogate mom to her sister’s three kids. I was grateful for the work, but even more, I’m grateful to Tyler for putting me on the road to being paid my worth. It was he who gave me a fair wage to star in his movie, which ultimately raised my quote—the baseline pay I could negotiate going into subsequent movie deals. “Get your money,” he said. It was because of him—not an Oscar nomination—that I never had to take another movie project at the rock bottom of six figures.