“She gave me a voice.” – The Hollywood Reporter

In late 2023, Taraji P. Henson made headlines for her candid candidness on the press tour for Violet. In many conversations supporting the Warner Bros. film, — a musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, which was previously made into a 1985 film by director Steven Spielberg — Henson tearfully conveyed her frustrations as a black woman in Hollywood.

Despite an Academy Award nomination and four Emmy nominations, Henson admitted that finding roles that represented her status as a respected leading lady was still difficult. “The industry has made me think I’m very edgy, I’m from the street, I’m this, I’m that, I’m not Hollywood pretty. But the fight inside me and my purpose, once I realized I had a purpose in this thing, I was like, ‘Oh no,'” she said. Hollywood Reporter in December. “There’s a place for me because there’s a girl who needs to see herself on this screen.”

But while Violet It’s made Henson an awards contender once again, and she’s also starring in another film seeking an Oscar nomination. The documentary by directors Jo Brewster and Michelle Stevenson was shortlisted for an Academy Award Going to Mars: Project Nikki Giovanni, now airing on Max, is an intimate portrait of the celebrated poet and activist who gained fame in the late 1960s as a leading figure in the Black Arts Movement. Henson voices Giovanni in the film, and recites some of her most famous poetry scattered throughout the film.

For Henson, who first discovered Giovanni as a student at Howard University, it was literary icons like Giovanni that paved the way for her and gave her the courage to be similarly unapologetic. “She doesn’t hide behind things. She’s the walking, living, breathing truth,” Henson said. THR In a conversation about her love for Giovanni and the cinematic image of the artist. “I’m very proud of this project. I really am.”

Do you remember your introduction to Nikki Giovanni’s work?

I went to a historically black college. This is where I met and fell in love with Nikki Giovanni’s work. When you’re in college, you’re learning who you are as a young adult. And I’m grateful that I went to a black university at a black college because I learned a lot about my history as an African American, as a black woman—I learned my place in the world. It’s poets like Nikki Giovanni who gave me a voice, who made me go out into Hollywood and stand up for the things I believe in — and that (I) stand on her shoulders and her wisdom and her words. I did not seek this; This project came to me, and I think it came to me for a reason.

What was your first reaction when the project came your way? Immediate yes?

They told me two words: “Nicky Giovanni.”

Do you have a favorite poem or piece of writing for her?

My favorite conversation is between her and James Baldwin when they talk about the plight of the black man. It’s like, you can go out into the world and you can put on a face and you can lie to the white man, and then you come home and hit me. Why don’t you come home and lie to me like you do to (others)? I get shivers down my back when I think about it. Her way (of cutting) through the BS and getting straight to it — she had a way of doing it with such grace and elegance. It wasn’t like she was raising her voice from her neck and screaming loudly. This is a lesson in how people don’t have to agree. This is how you sit down and have an intellectual and intelligent discussion. This means that it requires one person to speak and the other to listen, to really listen – not to listen to try to get your word in, but to listen to what the person said, accept it, and process it.

There’s a moment in the film that I still think about, when someone asked her in a Q&A session what she was doing on the day Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. She says gracefully but forcefully that she doesn’t want to answer that question anymore. But it’s not disrespectful, it’s not disparaging – she’s just standing her ground.

That’s what makes her who she is. That is why its action is so effective and profound. It makes you feel because she is unapologetically herself. She speaks her truth. She doesn’t hide behind things. It is the walking, living and breathing truth.

How did you deal with reading her poetry in the film?

There was no text. Yes, there are words, and I have to say the words, but if this is a movie about Nicky Giovanni, then those words have to sound like Nicky Giovanni, right? This isn’t tragic — like, “Here’s the poem, now make it yours.” you know what i mean? I’ll be honest with you: when I first came. I did some (reading, as was the case with the filmmakers), “Can you pull it back?” We talked about it until it all made sense.

Did you need to find her voice in your head as well as in her words?

I listened to her speak. You have to remember this was the 1970s. There was a certain rhythm to the way people spoke. I’ve done films set in the ’70s, and I’m a child of the ’70s, so I understand that there’s a certain rhythm. The way they spoke was almost poetic – “When you get up from going down.” I had to add a little bit of that to her tone of voice. But like I said, I’ve listened to it many times.

How was it different the way you approach playing the character?

Like I said, there wasn’t an actual script, but there were things I recognized that moved me and moved me. Again, this is not my story to tell. I understood what she was talking about, especially when she got to the part about the relationship with her son. That touched me. But again, I’m reading it as Nikki Giovanni. This isn’t my story to tell, but I can totally identify with it, and that’s what I do with my characters. There’s Suge Avery’s pain in Violet. She sings the blues because she has the blues. I have the blues too. Maybe it’s not the same blues feeling as you, but I know what the blues feels like.

Did you meet Nikki Giovanni before you made the film?

I was not. I felt like I knew her, but I didn’t. We did a Q&A after the show here in Los Angeles, and I was so nervous, because it was my first time meeting her. I was like, are you going to think I’m an idiot? They want me to be the mediator? What if I say something wrong? I was never a supervisor before. (He laughs.)

mentioned Violet. between Go to Mars And with this film, you really elevate the work of two literary icons to a new generation. What was so important about Nikki Giovanni and also Alice Walker, and why did you want to be a part of both of these projects?

Because of these women, I can stand here and talk to you. They paved the way for me so I could have a voice. Now, they’re not actors, but the work they’ve done is so important to what I do and where I am as a black woman. They were visible. I saw them. They made it possible for me to dream. Watching Nikki Giovanni act so casually and stand up for herself the way she did gave me the wind under my wings to have a voice so I could show up behind me. talk about your self. This is how change happens.