Taraji Power |
Today, Taraji P. Henson talks about making Shug Avery her own. Shug, of course, is the beautiful, vivacious blues singer from Alice Walker’s classic novel, The Color Purple. The character has lived large on Broadway, as well as in Steven Spielberg’s 1985 movie. Henson sees her big personality as a defense mechanism for a vulnerability that lies underneath. “I’m sure people think she’s called Shug because it’s sexualized—sugar because her thang is sweet,” she says. “But to me, her name represented that sweetness, that tenderness deep down inside that she protected with her big personality, and her money, and her clothes.” In the new movie musical, Henson’s Shug comes alive in a new way—possibly because of Henson’s personal connection to the character and to her determination to prove her doubters wrong. “She knows people are talking about her—sort of like how I felt when I became pregnant in college and people thought that I would drop out,” says Henson, who was a junior at Howard University when she became pregnant with her son. “I took on that attitude. I was like, ‘Watch me finish school with this baby on my hip, and I’m going to walk across the stage and I’m going to gather my papers in front of you with this baby on my hip.’” |
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