TARAJI P. HENSON HAS ENLIGHTENED EXPERIENCE

Talk To Me star Taraji P. Henson discovered a new way to honor Martin Luther King, Jr.

Talk To Me is set in the 1960s where people weren’t afraid to speak their minds and voice their problems with politicians. There was one man during that time who was beloved and that was Martin Luther King, Jr. Writer and director Kasi Lemmons showed how his assassination impacted the entire community of Washington, D.C. as told by disc jockey Petey Green played by Don Cheadle.

Taraji P. Henson stars in the film as Petey’s girlfriend Vernell Watson. She was born and raised in D.C. and says the film enlightened her.

“For me it showed an inside track to when Martin Luther King was assassinated in a light that I hadn’t really…maybe I wasn’t in the right place to receive it because certainly there were other movies that showed or relived that situation but because it was in D.C. where I’m from I think it touched me in a way that other movie hadn’t been able to because I walked those streets that were burned down and they are just cleaning them up like today.”

Taraji discovered how King’s death profoundly affected people when doing research for the role.

“For me doing the research it shed a whole other light on how people were affected because I don’t, I didn’t really get how people truly were affected. It was almost as if Jesus Christ had been crucified. People dropped dead and went into cardiac arrest, deep depressions and have never been able to bounce back, suicides. So I think it shows another light, sheds another light on his assassination.”

Taraji goes back to the 1900s playing Brad Pitt’s adoptive mom in the upcoming David Fincher film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button where she ages from 26 to 71.