Taraji P. Henson Opens up About Her Father and Cousin’s Deaths

She continues and writes the following about her cousin:

Let me take you on a trip. My cousin had been battling AIDS and he passed away on the same day that my character died. This is my cousin who took me to drag shows. He told me about down-low brothers, he may have saved my life. He also taught me about being a lady. He told me ladies carry clutches on the red carpet, so sometimes when I don’t carry a clutch I feel I’m disgracing him. It’s the simple stuff you miss in a person. No one ever taught me how to properly put toilet tissue on the spool, with the flap hanging toward you, not underneath. He taught me that, and it lives with me to this day. Whenever I go into someone’s bathroom and their tissue isn’t the right way, I look up in the sky, and I go, Damn!

The day of my cousin’s funeral was the day we shot Queenie’s funeral for the film, and I was upset because I couldn’t be there for him. They had prosthetics on my hands to make them old and the prosthetic kept lifting off of my left hand. I kept telling the makeup team—because David Fincher is very meticulous—“You better come fix this.” I talked to my godmother as soon as I got off and asked her about the funeral. She said, “It was beautiful…except rigor mortis started setting in, in his left hand.”

That’s how powerful art is. It can turn a hateful person into a loving person. It can turn a racist into a person who loves. Art uncovers the truth. My driving force is the truth. I want to breathe truth into every character no matter how ugly or pretty, whether I agree with them or not. Maybe God just put truth serum in my blood. I can’t lie. I have no mask. The truth will manifest on my face.