“I knew the stakes,” Taraji P. Henson writes in her new memoir, “Around the Way.” “No matter how talented, no matter how many accolades my prior work had received, if I pushed for more money, I’d be replaced and no one would so much as a blink.”
That’s how Henson ended up receiving less than two percent of Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett’s salary for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” the Guardian reports.
Henson’s memoir reveals that the actress earned “the equivalent of sofa change” for her Oscar-nominated role. “Around the Way” also discusses how Henson was passed over for Naomi Watts’ role in “St. Vincent,” despite the character being written specifically for her. Someone with greenlight power “couldn’t see black women beyond a very limited purview he or she thought ‘fit’ audience expectations,” Henson comments in her book.
If that wasn’t infuriating enough, Henson had to pay her own location fees while shooting “Benjamin Button” in New Orleans. The three months of hotel expenses — that she racked up for doing her job — came out of her pocket. “Insult, meet injury,” Henson writes.
Somehow, we seriously doubt Pitt or Blanchett had to pick up their hotel bills.
Henson’s story about the David Fincher film demonstrates the double bind black women in Hollywood face every day. By now, we are all aware of the gender pay gap in show business. Women routinely make less than their male co-leads, and it’s even more horrifying for women of color. Non-white actors usually make less than their white counterparts, as Forbes’ 2015 Highest-Paid Actresses List makes clear. Henson just put into words what we already know and ignore: Actresses, and especially actresses who aren’t white, resort to accepting less pay than they know they deserve because they want to work. And they know that if they rock the boat, the role will very likely be offered to someone else.
She comments, “The math really is pretty simple: there are way more talented black actresses than there are intelligent, meaningful roles for them, and we’re consistently charged with diving for the crumbs of the scraps, lest we starve.”
Henson was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in 2009 for her work as Queenie in “Benjamin Button.” Her other credits include “Hustle & Flow,” “Talk to Me,” “Date Night,” and “Top Five.” She starred in “Person of Interest” as Joss Carter from 2011 to 2015, and currently appears as Cookie Lyon in “Empire,” a role that has earned her two Emmy nominations.
Henson is already getting awards buzz for her next film, “Hidden Figures,” which hits theaters Christmas Day.
