Taraji P. Henson - Cookie Lyon, Empire
Empire is an American musical television series created by Lee Daniels and Danny Strong. It tells the story of a hip-hop mogul, former drug dealer and CEO of Empire Entertainment, who is forced to choose a successor among his three sons who are fighting for control of his company, while his ex-wife tries to get back what belongs to her.
Cookie Lyon is the wife of former drug dealer turned hip-hop mogul Lucious Lyon. Having just been released from prison after serving a 17-year sentence, she is looking to take over half of their multi-million dollar record label, initially financed by money from her drug sales.
Described as a "badass", "true" heroine, Cookie Lyon is a complicated and complex woman, a strong woman who puts her family first, without ever compromising. She is a woman who tells it like it is, she doesn't hide from the truth and dares to say things, even the things people don't want to hear.
Taraji Penda Henson is an American actress. Drama student at Howard University, she began her Hollywood career with small roles in several television series. She broke through in 2001 with the film "Baby Boy". In 2005, she played a prostitute in "Hustle & Flow", and a single mother of a disabled child in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" in 2008, a performance for which she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. In 2010, she appeared in the action comedy "Date Night" and in the drama "The Karate Kid". In 2016, the world noticed her in the critically acclaimed film "The Shadow Figures", in which she played the role of Katherine Johnson, an American mathematician, NASA employee, whose orbital mechanics calculations played a key role in the success of the first American manned space flight.
Also with a long career in television, she starred in the 2011 TV movie "Taken from Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story", which earned her a nomination for Best Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie at the Primetime Emmy Awards. From 2011 to 2013, she starred as Detective Jocelyn Carter in the series "Person of Interest". From 2015 to 2020, she played one of the lead roles, Cookie Lyon, in the drama series "Empire". This role made her the first African-American woman to win the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series. She will also be honored with a Golden Globe Award and a nomination at the Primetime Emmy Awards.
In 2016, Time ranked her among the 100 most influential people in the world. That same year, she published her autobiography, "Around the Way Girl", which became a New York Times bestseller.
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