Taraji P. Henson for Rolling Out Magazine.

On building her empire:

“Everything that I’ve worked for … I have built an empire in one generation. My son [Marcel] does not remember the bad times. I preach to him that he should protect it as well. I’ve done what my mother wasn’t able to do or her mother. That’s pretty huge. I emphasize him protecting it as well, with social media, [telling him to] be careful what you put out there. They are going to try to get to me through you,” she explains.

On when she started to take acting seriously:

“My whole life, I performed in front of anybody who’d listen. I got serious about it when I saw my Howard University colleagues make it. I would attend the movies and ask, ‘Is that Paula Jai Parker?’ ‘Is that Anthony Anderson?’ I realized I could do this and really make money. Even though I studied it, it seemed so far removed and I wondered if I’d be a starving theater actress.”
“We have great people to look up to; alumnae Lynn Whitfield, Debbie Allen and Phylicia Rashad. I went into the program with a lot hope. It was when I saw my actual peers book jobs, I told myself, ‘I can do this!’ It’s when I got really serious about it.”