Actor Taraji P. Henson is fuming mad over TV Guide snubbing her from the cover for CBS’ new drama series Person of Interest.
Taraji posted on her Facebook page,
“WOW!!!! TV Guide is NOT including me on the cover with my cast members……..I am the female lead of a 3 member cast and I’m not included on the cover!!!!!! Do you see the shit I have to deal with in this business…..I cram to understand!!!!”
Indie Wire claims Taraji hadn’t been included in any of the marketing campaigns, save for one, by CBS – from print to trailers/video – Taraji is missing. Does this mean CBS doesn’t care to capitalize on Taraji’s fan base?? Or is Henson’s role not as involved as she may believe?
Ironically the show premieres tomorrow night – and guess who’s drumming up my interest in watching? Taraji! Sadly at her expense.
Did CBS make the wrong call to leave Ms. Henson out of the marketing and should Taraji direct her complaints to CBS or TV Guide?
Update: Taraji made some time to discuss her lead role in the upcoming series with the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy:
On preparing for the role:
I played a cop — my first television show that I did years ago, was for Lifetime and I play a detective rookie, different kind of cop. I rode shotgun with some detectives in San Francisco. I did that kind of research but I think deeper for Carter is the military training, which makes her a different kind of cop. She’s by the book, she’s a clean cop. She’s a little more emotionally attached to her job than a lot of cops because you see so much crime and dirt and grittiness in the world, you kind of become cynical. She hasn’t because she’s seen war and war is something totally different than war on the streets in America. When you go to war in a foreign country and sometimes you don’t even know what your enemy looks like, that’s a different kind of mindset. She’s a little different from your average cop.
On whether she conducted more research to play Detective Carter:
Absolutely, more particularly paying attention to women because when a person goes to war and you’re staring death in the face everyday like that, it does something to you mentally. I was more interested in what it does to women. The stories I read were just so alarming, how women soldiers, particularly in this war now — Iraq and Afghanistan are a different kind of war — what they are going through as far as being raped by their own soldiers. They’re not even having to just fight the enemy, but the people of the country they’re serving and protecting are turning on them in the unit. These women are coming back with these mental issues and these mental scars, physical scars too. It just does something to you. I know it does something to men, my father was a Vietnam Vet, and he came back and had to get a lot of mental help. But when you talk about sending your mother, it’s something different for women. It’s a different situation because you’re more vulnerable, not to just the enemy but even within your own family so to speak.
Will Taraji’s sometime presence be enough for you to watch Person of Interest?
