Taraji Penda Henson is an American actress and singer. She is best known for her roles as Yvette in Baby Boy

Baby Boy (film)

Baby Boy is a 2001 American urban drama film written, produced, and directed by John Singleton. It has been considered a sequel of sorts to Singleton's earlier, more famous work Boyz n the Hood released ten years earlier...

 (2001), Shug in Hustle and Flow (2005) and Queenie in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (film)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a 2008 American fantasy-drama film directed by David Fincher. The screenplay by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord is loosely based on the 1922 short story of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald...

 (2008), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress

Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress

Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...

 in 2009. In 2009, she appeared in Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself

I Can Do Bad All By Myself (film)

Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All by Myself is a 2009 romantic musical comedy-drama film which was released on September 11, 2009. The film was directed, produced, and written by Tyler Perry, who also makes an appearance in the film as his signature character Madea...

 as April, an alcoholic singer. She currently co-stars in the CBS series Person of Interest

Person of Interest (TV series)

Person of Interest is an American crime drama television series broadcasting on CBS. It is based on a screenplay developed by J. J. Abrams and Jonathan Nolan. The series was officially picked up by CBS on May 13, 2011, and debuted on September 22, 2011. On October 25, 2011 the show was picked up...

.
Henson was born in Southeast Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, the daughter of Bernice Gordon, a corporate manager at Woodward & Lothrop

Woodward & Lothrop

Woodward & Lothrop was a department store chain headquartered in Washington, D.C. Woodward & Lothrop was Washington, D.C.'s first department store, opening in 1887. Woodies, as it was often nicknamed, maintained stores in the Mid-Atlantic United States...

, and Boris Henson, a janitor and fabricator.