Taraji P. Henson often plays towering characters who catapult off the screen with charisma, defiance, and tenacity. She ruled network television for six years as Cookie Lyon in Empire and stole scenes from Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. She lights up her latest film, a musical adaptation of The Color Purple, as the swaggering singer Shug Avery, belting blues anthems in a swampside juke joint as she holds men and women alike in the palm of her hand.
But Henson brings a lot more than sheer bluster to these roles. “The way I see it, people who have these big personas, that’s a defense mechanism covering their most prized possession: their heart,” she says. “They’re like, ‘See this hand, so you don’t see what’s really…
