Premise: Taraji Penda Henson ( [ tə ` rɑːdʒi ] ; born September 11 , 1970 ) is an American actress and author . She studied acting at Howard University and began her Hollywood career in guest-roles on several television shows before making her breakthrough in Baby Boy ( 2001 ) . She received praise for playing a prostitute in Hustle & Flow ( 2005 ) and a single mother in David Fincher 's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ( 2008 ) ; for the latter , she received Academy Award , SAG Award and Critics Choice Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress ; for the former , she received a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture nomination . In 2011 Henson starred in the Lifetime Television film Taken from Me : The Tiffany Rubin Story , which earned her a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie . In 2015 , she began starring as Cookie Lyon on the Fox drama series Empire , for which she became the first African-American woman to win a Critics ' Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series .
Hypothesis: Taraji P. Henson is a performer.
Label: ENTAILMENT