Taraji P. Henson On ‘Fight Night,’ Project 2025 And Retirement

Retirement is on Taraji P. Henson’s mind.

And who could blame her? After a nearly 30-year career that’s earned her an Oscar nomination, starring roles in films and television shows and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Henson has been thinking hard about what her future will look like. More ease. More comfort. Less acting.

“When I say ‘retirement,’ I mean not that I will never, ever work again. But I want to finally get to a place where I don’t have to do an acting job to pay bills,” she said. “I think that’s when it’ll get back to being fun again for me. Not that I’m stressed and taking every job or whatever. It’s just that right now I do still rely a lot on my acting income to pay my bills and make things happen.”

In December, Henson’s viral SiriusXM interview with Gayle King reignited a big conversation about the pay inequity Black women face in Hollywood when Henson said “the math ain’t mathing” for those who look like her.

“It seems every time I do something and break another glass ceiling, when it’s time to renegotiate, I’m at the bottom again, like I never did what I just did, and I’m just tired,” she told King through tears.

Shortly after that interview, the 54-year-old actor got a call from “Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist” producers Will Packer and Kevin Hart. There was no audition. No having to prove herself. Just an offer for the role as the top woman on the bill, starring opposite Hart. And with Samuel L. Jackson already attached to the project by then, Henson was sold. This was what she meant by quality over quantity.

“Fight Night” is loosely based on a robbery that occurred in Atlanta on the night of boxer Muhammad Ali’s 1970 comeback fight. After Ali’s title was stripped for his refusal to serve in the Vietnam War, his return to the ring attracted some of the city’s biggest celebrities, politicians and gangsters.

When Gordon “Chicken Man” Williams, played by Hart, holds an afterparty at his house for some 200 guests, robbers arrive to steal their valuables and hold them hostage in the basement.

The Peacock series, inspired by a podcast of the same name, explores that night and its aftermath, an event that helped Atlanta become the Black Mecca it is today. At the premiere screening, Packer and Hart described the limited series as “a love letter to Atlanta.”

Henson hadn’t heard of Williams’ story before reading the script, but it brought new clarity to the trips she’d taken in the ’90s back to Atlanta to visit her son’s godparents. She’d seen Black folks moving down South, becoming entrepreneurs, thriving. “I had no idea this was stemming all from 1970,” she said.

Though “Fight Night” is the first limited series the Washington, D.C., native has starred in, she’d worked with most of the top names in the star-studded cast (Hart, Terrence Howard, Don Cheadle) previously, with the exception of Jackson.

“This is the stuff you dream about,” she explained excitedly. “You want to be one of the heavy-hitters, you want to be on that A-list when they put projects like this together.” She was also happy to work with several younger actors, like Sinqua Walls and Myles Bullock.

“We don’t really get to do this as Black actors,” she said, referring to the Black star power in the cast. “We don’t really get to load ’em up heavy like this a lot.”

In “Fight Night,” Henson plays Vivian Thomas, Chicken Man’s business partner and mistress. She has big dreams of her own ― but achieving them will be a difficult feat for an adult entertainer-turned-hustler in the 1970s South. V

iewers have compared Vivian to Cookie Lyon, the audacious formerly convicted music mogul Henson played in “Empire.” And though there may be a few similarities, Henson approached the two characters from very different perspectives.

“Cookie was loud. Wore her heart on her sleeve. She popping off. You knew exactly what you was gonna get with Cookie,” Henson said. “Vivian, you may have to study her a little more, ’cause she’s not gonna give it all away because she has to play with men so much. So she becomes kind of a poker face.”

With Cookie, Henson tapped into her father’s energy. But for “Fight Night,” Henson used her own story to fuel Vivian’s.

“She is one of those characters that have to walk a fine line because she doesn’t want to be placed in a box, but she can’t become invisible. She still has to have a voice and speak up for herself. But in finding who she is, there’s rules to this shit,” she said.

“Vivian is about her business because at the end of the day, Vivian’s gonna make sure Vivian is OK,” Henson went on. “She has to walk a fine line if anything is going to work with her and Chicken. She knows her place. She’s a woman who is very clear on who she is and she has her eye on her prize.”

Henson’s kept her eyes on the prize, too. After graduating from Howard University as a single mom, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting. Since her breakout role in 2001’s “Baby Boy,” her onscreen presence has been unmistakable. She’s starred in several hit projects, including “Hidden Figures,” “Hustle & Flow,” “Empire” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” With a charm straight out of the DMV, she’s been able to stand out alongside the likes of Alfre Woodard, Brad Pitt and Michael Ealy.

But she’s struggled, too. Last December wasn’t the first time Henson called Hollywood executives out for unequal pay. In 2019, she revealed that she made $150,000 for her Oscar nominated role in “Benjamin Button,” despite asking for $500,000. That’s less than 2% of what Pitt made for the same film: $10 million.

And she doesn’t limit herself to just talking about money. While hosting this year’s BET awards, Henson passionately spoke about what’s at stake in the forthcoming presidential election, specifically calling out the far-right playbook known as Project 2025.

“I understand God put me here for a reason and it just wasn’t for vanity, for me to be pretty and be on carpets and just get rich and buy pretty things and rub it in everybody’s face,” she said of her responsibility to use her platform. “You gotta enable people to be better. And so for me, I was just concerned. I was nervous. I honestly spoke out of anxiety. ’Cause I was like, no one’s paying attention. I don’t understand a lot of the stuff they be talking about, but I know right from wrong.”

Henson has a few forthcoming projects that have been announced, including a film adaptation of Alessandro Camon’s “Time Alone,” Tyler Perry’s upcoming drama “Straw” and the scripted podcast “Stranded.” She has a haircare line, TPH, recently released a children’s book titled “You Can Be a Good Friend (No Matter What!)” and will soon launch a new beverage.

She has a few hopes for future plans, too, including starring in a sitcom and doing some directing.

“My brand is getting bigger. Things are growing,” she said. “I’m just not in a place where I can totally just be like, ‘You know what, I’ll take this year, the next two years off.’ And a little bit of me got FOMO right now.

“Still, I don’t think sitting out for me is an option … but to be quite honest, I just don’t know if I want to just be in the industry forever.”

New episodes of “Fight Night” are streaming on Peacock every Thursday.