"Empire" actress Taraji P. Henson has had her fair share of struggle in Hollywood before being known and accepting awards for her work and she recently opened up about these instances she had to go through as well as being able to get an equal payment. She also claimed that the role specifically written for her in the drama "St. Vincent" was ultimately given to Naomi Watts.
In a report by People, the Golden Globe winner wrote a memoir called "Around the Way Girl" and she jotted down that she lost a lot of great roles because of casting actors of color. For her "St. Vincent" role in the comedy-drama 2014 flick, she claimed that her role was given to Watts because they could not see black women beyond a very limited purview.
She did praise the writer-director of "St. Vincent," Theodor Melfi, saying that he was able to see her outside the box, which is a black woman playing the girlfriend of a grumpy white man.
However, although she landed a breakthrough role, which was in the 2008 flick "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," she was still not content because she was not paid the equal amount that Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett were paid. She compared the money that she got with sofa change and it was in the lowest six figures. She continued to reveal that during the making of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," she had to pay for her own hotel bill and noted that it was an insult.
Despite the struggle, her role as the worker at a nursing home caring for the lead character in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" paid off because she earned her Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
She has since been more popular for her role as Cookie Lyon in the hit FOX TV show "Empire." She will be seen in her next project entitled "Hidden Figures," The Guardian reported.
The producers of both "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and "St. Vincent" are yet to comment on the revelations of Henson.
