Howard was not shy about his amorous interests in Ms.
“He classed up this whole hip-hop thing,” Ms. Daniels already had a specific actor in mind to play Lucious - he declined to say whom - she wanted Mr. Henson had a demand of her own: Though Mr. “There’s no mask,” she said of the character.
Casting director for empire tv#
Henson, who had left the CBS thriller “Person of Interest,” said she was not eager to return to TV and was happier doing Los Angeles theater, “getting my $5.” But when she read the “Empire” script, she found Cookie irresistibly obstinate. He remembered she had wanted the title role in “Precious,” the abused child played by Gabourey Sidibe, for which, he said, “she’s out of her mind.” Henson as Cookie, Lucious’s former spouse, who took the fall for their misdeeds.
Casting director for empire series#
“We’re walking a line of comedy, but if you dig deep, there’s a pain that’s there.”Ĭasting the series was a soap opera in itself. “We wink at the camera and do it tongue-in-cheek,” he said. Daniels, who cites shows like “Dynasty” and “Dallas” as influences on “Empire,” said the soap-opera format could offer ways to cloak serious themes of race and class in layers of melodrama. Daniels’s father put him in a garbage can for wearing women’s shoes is recreated in the first episode of “Empire.” Daniels, “he would tell me stories about his life, and we would start to infuse them into the show.” A childhood experience in which Mr. Strong said that as he discussed these ideas with Mr. Strong began to spin out a tale, part “Godfather” and part “King Lear,” about a dying executive and his three children: a strait-laced M.B.A., a gay pop singer and a reckless rapper. Henson), who is released from prison and seeking a share of the business.įeeling that there were not enough films and television series set in a hip-hop milieu, Mr. After learning he has a fatal disease, he must decide which of his three sons will take over his company and confront his outspoken ex-wife, Cookie (Ms.
Howard), a rapper and drug dealer turned music mogul. “Empire,” a generational drama about acquiring power and expunging sins of the past, tells the story of Lucious Lyon (Mr. Daniels created with his “Butler” screenwriter, Danny Strong. The candor of these collaborators, who are as affectionate with one another as they are argumentative, would seem to make them ideal for “Empire,” which Mr. “You need to be a megalomaniac to play a megalomaniac,” he replied. “The character’s a megalomaniac.”īut it was unclear if Mr. Howard, wearing a long white cape for the party scene, said in his quiet rasp, “I take it as offensive that Taraji gives me notes, because I think I’m a megalomaniac and I know what I’m doing.”
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