In her 2016 memoir, Around the Way Girl, Taraji P. Henson says it was Tyler Perry and not her 2008 Oscar nomination that finally ensured she would be compensated fairly for her work in Hollywood.
The Hidden Figures and The Color Purple actress has spoken often about her constant struggle to be paid what she believes her work and box office pull are worth, revealing Perry was the first industry executive to agree on the number she was asking for off the bat. That was the first time they ever worked together, sprouting a fruitful creative collaboration that is still producing results.
How many times have Taraji P. Henson and Tyler Perry worked together?
The actress and director have made three films together, 2008’s The Family That Preys, 2009’s I Can Do Bad All by Myself, and 2018’s Acrimony. Although Henson played a supporting role in the first, she took front stage in the others.
“The first time I worked with him, I got to work with Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard and Sanaa Lathan who I all look up to as an actress,” the award-winning actress told Los Angeles Times about her time making The Family That Preys. Henson played Pam, the daughter of Alfre Woodard’s matriarch character and sister of Sanaa Lathan’s opportunist Andrea.
According to Variety, Henson was still reeling with the disappointment of her meager Benjamin Button salary when she took on the job, which pushed her to stand her ground and demand half a million dollars from Perry, who immediately agreed.
Of course, when The Curious Case of Benjamin Button came out, it catapulted Henson right to the front lines of the acting world, thanks to her Oscar-nominated turn as Queenie, but if it hadn’t been for Perry she wouldn’t have had an adequate baseline figure to negotiate her following roles. “I’m grateful to Tyler for putting me on the road to being paid my worth,” the actress wrote in her 2016 memoir, Around the Way Girl, adding “It was he who gave me a fair wage to star in his movie, which ultimately raised my quote — the baseline pay I could negotiate going into subsequent movie deals.”
The opportunities the multi-hyphenate filmmaker brought to Henson’s career didn’t stop there. He called her the day after the Oscars in 2009 and offered her her first leading role in a movie ever in I Can Do Bad All By Myself, Henson told the Los Angeles Times. The Golden Globe-winning performer played struggling singer April, who is suddenly tasked with looking after her young nieces and nephews, forcing her to finally grow up and take responsibility.
It took almost 10 years for the duo to work together again in Acrimony, a psychological thriller film about a wife driven to the edge by her husband’s lying and deception. “He would always say, ‘I’m going to work with you again but it has to be right.’ So, I knew when he was calling that he had something great. And he did,” Henson shared. Explaining why she continues to work with Perry, the actress simply stated “I trust him. He gives me good jobs and good roles.”