After playing a cop for three years on the New York-based procedural “Person of Interest,” Taraji P. Henson was done with television. But her manager kept begging her to read a TV script called “Empire.”
Henson was back home in Los Angeles, doing the lead role in a play called “Above the Fold,” and most nights she was too tired to read any script. But the phone kept ringing. Her manager explained the role he wanted her to play — Cookie Lyon, a ghetto-fabulous diva who helped her husband found a record label, then went to prison for 17 years on a drug charge.
“‘Empire’ scared the hell out of me,” Henson tells The Post. “Cookie was real big. And I thought, ‘We are going to piss off all the black people.’ Then I thought, ‘Isn’t that what art is supposed to do?’ ”
In the end, Henson had nothing to be afraid of. Calling “Empire” a runaway hit doesn’t even come close to describing its impact. It’s TV’s biggest smash of the past decade. In the eight weeks since its January premiere, the show has added an unheard-of 4 million viewers — roughly 14 million people watch the Wednesday Fox series. It’s also sitting pretty among the Top 10 most-tweeted-about shows.
Created by film writer-director Lee Daniels (“Precious”) and writer Danny Strong, who collaborated on “The Butler,” the show focuses on the Lyon family: Cookie; her hip-hop mogul ex Lucious (Terrence Howard); and their three sons, one of whom will run Empire one day.
The eldest, Andre (Trai Byers), is the company’s CFO, equipped with a Wharton education but missing the ingredient his father prizes most: musical talent. The other two are budding superstars, but Lucious favors his youngest son, Hakeem (Bryshere Y. Gray), a playboy rapper with a mercurial temper, over introspective singer-songwriter Jamal (Jussie Smollett), whose homosexuality makes Lucious’ blood run cold.
“Empire” has all the elements of a classic prime-time soap — betrayal, rivalries, sexual secrets and even a little murder — but it’s more clever than most. Each week, the show features vibrant performances of original music coordinated by Timbaland and cameos by real artists, including upcoming guests Mary J. Blige and Jennifer Hudson.
“It’s a show about the music business. If the people in the show aren’t believably talented, the show would lose its credibility,” Strong says.
When writing the pilot, he was inspired by “King Lear” and the 1968 film “The Lion in Winter,” in which Katharine Hepburn played Eleanor of Aquitaine, the French queen kept prisoner by her husband, England’s King Henry II. When Henry vacillates in choosing an heir to the throne among his three sons, Eleanor arrives home to scheme with them.
Some of the show’s most powerful story lines come from real life, though. A flashback in which Lucious sees a 5-year-old Jamal dressed in high heels and a kerchief and puts him in a garbage can is based on Daniels’ own experience.
“Lee told me that story,” Strong says. “He called and said, ‘I can’t believe you put that in.’ I said, ‘It’s amazing and I’m not going to take it out.’ He just said, ‘OK. I trust you.’”
Daniels and Strong cast the show together, and Strong says the most intense audition process was finding the right performers to play Jamal and Hakeem. “We needed people who could sing and rap,” he says. “Bryshere was a rapper from Philly. It was his first audition. Now they’re becoming stars.”
Wesley Snipes was mentioned for the role of Lucious, but Strong preferred Howard. Henson — who had starred with Howard in the 2005 film “Hustle & Flow” — wanted him too.
“I knew he had the charm to play the devil,” Henson says. “We have chemistry. I know him. I know all his ex-wives. We love each other’s work. I’m trying to steal the scene from him and he’s trying to steal the scene from me.”
Told the latter has yet to happen, Henson laughs. One of the reasons no one can steal a scene from her is her delivery: rhythmic, lethal and hilarious. When you’ve been read by Cookie, it’s just too hard to give a decent comeback. The character’s favorite target is her nemesis, Lucious’ biracial fiancée Anika (Grace Gealey). Cookie’s put-downs allude to African-American stars contemporary (“Fake-ass Halle Berry”) and classic (“Fake-ass Lena Horne”), but the one that’s really catchy (“Boo boo kitty”) is her own coinage, dating back to her days in the theater department at Howard University.
“It was another way of saying ‘sweetie,’ ” she says. “You know how condescending ‘sweetie’ can be.”
Henson frequently has to apologize to Gealey for her ad-libs. In one early argument between Cookie and Anika, Cookie mocks the other woman by saying, “Ooh, that makes me hard.” The “Empire” editors had to take out the rest of her remarks, which Henson says went something like: “Mine’s probably bigger than Lucious’, and I last longer.”
With catfights, over-the-top fashions and vicious one-liners, the show recalls the heyday of “Dynasty.” But Henson resists the comparison.
“Joan Collins has been done,” she declares. “She was my hero. But it’s Cookie’s time. ‘Dynasty’ is over.”
Whereas the heyday of “Empire” is only just beginning — and with its superior ratings, the sky’s the limit. The show isn’t just asserting dominance on TV, it’s also starting to gain a foothold in radio.
“‘Empire’ is definitely a topic of discussion on our shows,” explains Thea Mitchem, head of programming for the New York division of iHeartRadio, whose stations include Power 105.1. “It’s a good way to break new artists.”
Smollett and Gray — the latter raps as Yazz — hit the iTunes Top 20 with their song “You’re So Beautiful,” which was part of a pivotal scene in the Feb. 25 episode. Smollett recently signed to Columbia Records.
As Mitchem explains, there’s more to come. “The Harlem rapper Charles Hamilton is making his comeback in the season finale [March 18]. He has a duet with Rita Ora called ‘New York Raining,’ and I think that will make a big impact.”
It’s Cookie’s time. ‘Dynasty’ is over.
- Taraji P. Henson
There has been rumor of a concert tour, though Strong says he has no idea if that’s true. Besides, he is too busy to worry about tangential matters. “Empire” has been renewed for a second season and he is about to go on a retreat with showrunner Ilene Chaiken to break down the next season, which will premiere in the fall.
As for Henson, she’s looking for the writers to explore what Cookie did for companionship during those 17 years in the slammer. “I’m sure she had a Clementine,” she says.
The actress herself is single. “No one’s really approaching,” she laments. “Maybe I scared the bejesus out of them and they think I’m going to chew their balls off.”
Additional reporting by Hardeep Phull