Actress Taraji P. Henson

Taraji P. Henson is an actress with a body of work in both television and the movies.

She became well-known in the 2000s and early 2010s with appearances in TV shows such as "Boston Legal," as well as the crime drama "Person of Interest," which she played detective Jocelyn Carter.  Her movie roles included a woman helping to take care of her nephew in the Tyler Perry movie The Family That Preys and an alcoholic singer in another Tyler Perry film, I Can Do Bad All By Myself.  In Between she played the mother of the title character in the 2010 remake of The Karate Kid. 

Ms. Henson's big breakthrough role, however, was as mathematician Katherine Johnson in Hidden Figures, the story of the black women who helped NASA put a man on the moon that much more quickly.  The title, of course, was a double entendre.

Since then, she's had roles as diverse as Cookie Lyon, the wife of a hip-hop mogul, in the TV series "Empire" (which I, opposed to hip-hop's mere existence, never watched), and Ali Davis, a sports agent with the power to read men's thoughts, in the 2019 movie What Men Want.

Taraji P. Henson is an entrepreneur as well, having started her own cosmetics and hair-care line.

Fun fact 1: Her full name is Taraji Penda Henson.  Her first name is Swahili for "hope," and her middle name is Swahili for "live." 

Fun fact 2: Polar explorer Matthew Henson was her great-great-grandfather's brother.