FOX’s new hip hop themed drama ‘Empire’ is the number one show on television for the past several weeks and as we see it, they show no signs of slowing down on their ratings reign.
The show’s leading lady Taraji P. Henson and her spit fire character Cookie Lyons has become the fan favorite for her tell it like it is hardcore attitude. In a new interview with Vogue, Taraji reveals that the inspiration behind the character came from Hip Hop’s original Queen Bee Lil Kim herself. Taraji revealed:
“That’s where a lot of her style comes from—Salt-N-Pepa, all of that. That era of hip-hop was her heyday, those are the women she identifies with.”
“Kim is everything. Today it’s Nicki Minaj, but Nicki Minaj got everything from Kim. Kim came on the scene and made everything change for women—she made it feminine and sexy and hardcore. She was a champion, and she’s certainly Cookie’s champion.”
Hmm, perhaps we can get a Kim cameo for season 2 along with the other A list guest stars including Denzel Washington joining that we previously told you about HERE
The other fan fave is Cookie’s son Jamal, played by Jussie Smolett. During the interview Taraji also touched on the relationship between Cookie and her gay son and the dynamics between the relationships in their family based on his homosexuality.
Your character’s relationship with her gay son, Jamal, is really beautiful. When Cookie defends him so passionately from his rejecting dad, where did those emotions come from?
Once a mother; always a mother. I’m a mother in real life, so I don’t have to act. When it’s time to protect our child, as parents, we feel our kid’s pain harder than they do. I tried to explain that to my son. The closest he came to understanding was through his relationship with our dog. He said, I feel that way about Willy. We carry them for nine months. I could only imagine having a child that a father rejects.
I feel like Lucious rejects him out of fear. When he puts Jamal in the trash can, he wanted to throw him away before the world threw him away. He wanted to hide his son from everyone—the ugliness of being a black gay male to the world. Fear will do anything, and Cookie understands the pain on both sides. Cookie is never going to hate her child for being who he is, but she fears for his life, too, because he’s gay and black. It’s deep.
You can peep the rest of the Vogue interview HERE and be sure to catch the new episode of ‘Empire’ tonight and every Wednesday at 9/8C on FOX.
