Taraji P. Henson Reveals Painful Moment Filming ‘Hidden Figures’

Taraji P. Henson is getting vulnerable about a hard time in her life while she was shooting the 2016 film “Hidden Figures.”

The Howard University alum, known for her roles in “The Color Purple” and the FX drama “Empire,” has worked to build a notable career. But the journey has sometimes been painful — as she revealed on Tuesday’s episode of the podcast “Legacy Talk With Lena Waithe.”

In the episode, Waithe asks Henson how she felt delivering a pivotal monologue in “Hidden Figures” in which, as mathematician Katherine Goble Johnson, she explains to a supervisor played by Kevin Costner that her “long breaks” at work are caused by having to use a far-away segregated bathroom. Her character revealed how racism directly affected her ability to perform.

“Honestly, I was going through something very tragic in my life. A loved one of mine was suffering, and we were trying to keep them alive,” Henson revealed.

At the time, the actor said, she’d instructed her makeup artist to “keep them on the line” and to “not let them hang up.”

“I said, ‘And we have to figure out if we call 911, if the cops show up, they might shoot them. We want the paramedics to show up,’” she said. “So, I’m dealing with that. I’m running down the hall ’cause I’m trying to be out of earshot so no one hears. So I’m running down the hall in between takes to keep the person on the phone, and I’m running back to do the scene. This is going on that entire scene.”

Henson described filming the monologue as an out-of-body experience shaped by the emotional stress she was under.

“I was present. I did it. And then as soon as they yelled ‘cut,’ I was running back down the hall,” Henson recalled.

The actor starred alongside Octavia Spencer (who played mathematician Dorothy Vaughan) and Janelle Monáe (who played engineer Mary Jackson) in the film, portraying three real-life African American women who worked at NASA during the space race — and helped launch the United States into orbit.