Lessons from Benjamin Button’s Queenie:
Academy-Award Nominee Taraji P. Henson Shares Encouraging Words

by Colleen Birch Maile

Hope has always defined the actress best known to movie-goers as Queenie, Brad Pitt’s mother in last year’s highly regarded Benjamin Button. Taraji P. Henson’s first name is the Swahili word for hope. Enduring optimism propelled her career from the days when she worked her way to a Howard University theater arts degree as a singing waitress.

“A passion for the art, for doing my best, that’s what drives me. When it comes to honors I don’t think about them,” she said. “The fact that Benjamin Button has created all this attention still surprises me. I’m like, ‘hey God, I guess this is what happens when you dream dreams, and they come true.”

It’s no wonder that the ever-persistent Henson earned an Academy-award nomination for her Benjamin Button performance.  The role of Queenie required the actress to stretch beyond the expected. For those of you who may have spent the last year at the International Space Station and are unaware of Brad Pitt’s tour d’force, Benjamin Button is based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s fantastical tale of reverse aging. Pitt’s character is born an old man and dies an infant. When Benjamin Button’s father abandons the ancient-appearing infant on the steps of a nursing home, its proprietor, Queenie, takes him in and raises him as her own. So in addition to playing mom to 45-year-old Brad Pitt, one of Hollywood’s biggest blue-eyed names, Henson, 38, also ages as the movie progresses. As her “son” grows younger, Queenie grows old.

Throughout the film, the character handles life, death and all that comes between with grace and compassion. According to the actress, being Benjamin Button’s mother inspired her to more of an “other-oriented” view of life.

 “Queenie is the embodiment of unconditional love. The way she loved the elders, they were strangers to her, but she cared for them like family . . . the way she fell in love with Benjamin just left on her doorstep. She didn’t owe any of them anything but there she is like sunshine every morning giving them a reason to hold on to every day.” To get into the role, Henson drew on her own maternal instincts and looked to her mother and grandmother for added inspiration. Ultimately the Benjamin Button role changed the way she looked at life.

“Queenie made me a softer, more understanding woman. Sometimes we can hold onto things in life, bitterness, disappointment, self-centeredness. Queenie was a selfless person. She always put others first and if all she got back for her efforts was a smile, that’s what filled her heart. You know love is the greatest gift God gave humans. Love really does conquer all. Queenie knew that. Three years ago, I lost my father. Queenie made me realize that I could deal with his death by finding the beauty and the joy of what we’d shared rather than just thinking of it from a selfish place, from what I was missing. As Queenie makes very clear we are not even promised the next moment in life. We have to make the most of what we have.



Those lessons are especially appropriate in stressful times she explained. “It’s a matter of focusing on the positive. Take LA traffic. It is the worst. But Queenie helped me realize that when people cut me off I don’t have to get angry. I can think maybe they just got a call that their mother is dying. Consider what the possibilities are for the other person. It’s not always about us. Always look for a loving way to handle any situation.”

Travel is an important part of Henson’s “make the most of every moment” philosophy. “I always prepare myself for the airport. I go through the process in my head before I get there. I always wear something comfortable—cute but comfortable. You’re more inclined to snap at people if you’re uncomfortable. Then, too I keep my eye on the big picture. I think about where I’m going and I enjoy the ride.”

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Where does an Academy-Award nominated actress like to go to unwind? 
Taraji Henson, a Washington D.C. native, craves the country. “Somewhere out in the sticks. I grew up in the city but I love the countryside. So anyplace with fresh, clean air where you can look up and see the stars at night is great. I have a friend who lived in Lancaster, Texas outside Dallas/Fort Worth. I love it there. Just to go sit on the porch and wave at people passing by. That’s my idea of a good time.”