- You look so beautiful.
- Thank you. You are too. Thank you.
- Oh, my God!
(audience clapping and cheering)
- Hello, everybody (chuckles).
Oh, my goodness.
- I'm still taking it in, you look so beautiful.
- Thank you. We had to pick a special dress for you, Kelly.
- Oh, my God! I was like, do you look like this every day?
I hate you. - No.
- Oh, I was like, is this like what--
- Not at all (chuckles).
- Well, I hear that you have like a salon in your house,
so you love getting ready.
You love like hair and makeup, nails,
all that kind of stuff, right? - I do.
And I almost missed acting by one year.
I didn't get accepted into the high school
of performing arts in DC, so I honestly--
- Who's laughing now high school?
Who's laughing now?
- Well, I've since been back to speak to the students.
- Oh, never mind, we love you. You're great.
We great. - It's okay.
They love that story because, you know,
a no doesn't mean it's the end.
It was just a no from that place, you know.
But I had to learn that at a very young age
and I didn't know-- - That's hard.
- How to process it.
So I thought that meant I couldn't act.
So I went on
and I tried to enroll in a school of cosmetology,
but I needed to enroll in the ninth grade,
and I was already into my 10th grade year so I missed it.
But it was always in me because when I was in college,
I used to do $20 set acrylics.
And I used to do-- - Wow! You can do acrylics?
- Yes. I taught myself. I don't have a license, but
(audience laughs)
it's okay.
- But it's great. - It's fun.
And I think I will credit that
to me being a creative person.
I'm just very creative and I like to create.
- It's art, definitely. - It really is.
- I am not that kind of art.
I am the opposite of you. - Yes, you're (indistinct).
- I am like no makeup and jeans.
I don't know if it's that either.
I don't know. - Yes you are.
This is Kelly Clarkson. - I don't know.
- Come on.
(audience clapping and cheering)
- But I have a friend who loves her wigs and she names them.
I actually started naming my weave.
I started like, I have a weave, a MacIntyre
and I have a weavy wonder. - Oh, I love it.
- Weavy necks. I started naming them all.
And because it's funny, and so she names hers.
But you have a lot of wigs, right?
- I do. - You name them, don't you?
- I just call them her, she, girl.
- Oh! - It's too many to name.
I swear. I have wigs. I've run out of wig heads.
- I'm more personal, but whatever.
I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.
- I be like, it's gon this girl today.
Oh no, her. I'll do her.
- It's kind of interesting because it does kind of change
like whatever personality you're having that day,
or wherever you're at, you're like, this is me today.
- Yes. - I love that.
- And for me, a lot of times, it's the color too,
'cause I'll switch a color up on you real quick (laughs).
- Yeah. Welcome back. Taraji P. Henson is here.
Give it up you-all.
(audience clapping and cheering)
So I didn't know this, but before you started acting,
you worked at the Pentagon?
- Yeah. - Like why? What?
- Why? - What were you doing?
- Well, I kinda got there
because I had to pay off one university
so that I can enroll in Howard,
and I owed $1000 before I could get my transcript.
So I needed a job.
- No, I get it.
I get that part, yeah.
- And I'm from DC,
my entire family works with the government.
- Oh! - So it's really nepotism.
I was like, I called my step-mom.
I was like, oh, do you think you can give me a job?
She works at the Pentagon
and she got me into the stay in school program.
- Oh! - Was a summer program,
but then once I paid off the,
I didn't have quite enough to pay the 1000 off
and summertime was coming to an end.
So I went to
Henry Smith.
She was a kick ass,
can I say that? - Sure.
- Kick ass (chuckles) woman.
And she ran my office.
I don't remember exactly what she did,
but she was very high up in the ranks.
she was close to like a GS,
like a general in the service, but she was a civilian.
And I went to her and I was just very honest with her.
I was like, you know, I'm here,
I'm trying to, you know, pay off one university
so I can enroll at Howard University.
And she heard me.
And I was like, the summer program is over
and I heard you have a stay in school program.
And guess what she did,
she didn't have the program in her office
but she created a position for me.
- What? - Mm-hmm.
- That's amazing.
- That's how I was able to go to school, to finish.
- And you know what that is, it's opportunity.
Just giving some opportunity and that chance,
it really did change this trajectory of your life.
- Lending a hand for someone that you see might need.
I mean, and it's always been women, and it's been men too,
but I'm just saying like, when women stick together,
we rise together. - Absolutely.
- Because when, thank you.
- Instead of going threatening.
- Exactly, instead of going against each other,
because that's how society wants us to be,
against each other.
Because I think they know the powers
if we know that we are a force to be reckoned with
when we sit together.
No, seriously. - Yes. No, agreed, agreed.
- Because you know when I was in college,
I had become pregnant my junior year.
Guess how I was able to finish,
Debbie Allen and Phylicia Rashad,
they are both alumni of Howard University.
- Yeah. They've both, yeah, yeah.
- Yes. And they created a scholarship
in honor of their father, Andrew Allen.
It was a triple thread scholarship and I won it
and that's how I was able to finish school.
- Wow!
- Yes. - That's so cool.
- They're powerful women. - They are incredible.
- Well, speaking of school,
I didn't know this about you either,
but you were a teacher before this? I didn't...
- Yes. I was-- - You're all these things.
I'm like, what? - Many many hats.
- Yeah. I was like, that's crazy.
- Well, when I came to LA I didn't have a real plan,
I just knew I needed to be out here where the jobs were.
And so I'm a single mom and I have to make ends meet.
And I just remember going, oh my God,
Hollywood really doesn't care about this degree in fine arts
that I have,
so how else can I use this puppy?
You know, I'm like, broke,
trying to put myself through college.
And I figured it out, I was substitute teaching.
'Cause you could have a degree in whatever.
- Yeah.
- But you needed a degree
to show that you finished, you know, higher education.
And so-- - You might as well use it.
It costs a lot of money.
- I had a whole group of us, we were substitute teachers.
- Wow! - All of my girlfriends
in the struggle-- - That's hard.
- It is hard. - Kids can be mean.
- I had a chair thrown at me by a fourth grader
who called me the B word and threw a chair at me.
And I was like, throw another chair,
you go meet me at three o'clock outside.
Like, I'm that kinda teacher.
- I'm just saying,
it happens everywhere, kids are crazy at certain ages.
But it's such a great thing though to be able to do,
and to love kids and have that kinda patience
to be able to do it, so it's an honorable thing.
- To be able to spark a young mind,
like that's a gift. - That's cool.
- Yeah. - Yeah, yeah.
I gotta say, this will be so interesting for you.
You should like, you know, write, produce or do something,
some kinda movie like this.
This is so cool. This would be a great, a great show.
This would be a great thing to do.
I would want to-- - You hear that, Hollywood?
- Yeah.
- That script that I've been working on for 10 years!
- Oh, my God, really? Oh, my gosh!
This is awesome,
you've got Annie Live airing tonight on NBC.
- Like, do you get excited about the live energy
or do you get nervous about it?
- Well, I was trained in live theater.
I actually feel more comfortable live on stage.
- Me too, in theater, yeah. - Because it's,
you know exactly what's,
if you hit the mark you know,
you know if you need to put the foot on the gas
to get them involved, you know.
But when you're on a set is stagnant, like so--
- And you have to repeat it
over and over. - Yeah, but you have to wait.
So you gotta wait till they yell, cut,
and then you go to dead land.
And as soon as they yell, cut, and they laugh,
you go, okay, I did it. I did it, you know.
But theater is like, they feed you,
you feed the audience, they feed you back.
And there's a column response
that I can't really get when you're on a set.
- No. And every night in theater,
that's why I grew up in musical theater as well,
it's different.
You can have the same exact show but it's so different,
'cause the energy, like where everybody's at,
the chemistry, I love live.
- It's the only time in our business
where you get to live the story
from beginning, middle, to end.
And you don't like-- - In the moment.
- In the moment 'cause in features and television
you all over.
I remember Baby Boy,
'cause I was coming straight from theater,
I was like, what do you mean
we're shooting the last scene first?
- Oh, yeah. See that don't, yeah, no.
How am I supposed to get there?
- Right. - Yeah.
- Yeah. But that's a skill
that I think being trained in theater
helps you to jump around like that,
because I know my script from beginning, middle, and end
'cause that's how I was trained.
Most people, not most,
but some people that I know that were not trained,
they will go through the script and just find their stuff.
- Oh, and they don't look at the whole story--
- You know what I mean? - And how you react.
Well then how can you be reactive
if you don't know what, yeah.
- I don't judge. I'm just saying--
- I do. - There's a different way.
- Okay. So you play, so you play Miss Hannigan now,
were you ever in any as a kid?
I feel like everybody did something involving it as kid.
- I sang The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow
on my kindergarten graduation.
- That's adorable. - I still remember that at 51.
That's when acting bomb - I'm sorry,
- Bit me. - What?
- Yeah.
- You're 51?
- Yeah. But you know I think...
(audience clapping and cheering)
- Don't you applaud that!
- (laughs) Yes, applaud that!
- I am offended! - No.
No, you know why?
I wanna be the representation for women
that your sexy, it never dies until you're in the box.
- Not everybody looks like that at 51 (laughs).
- But it's, listen, it's how you feel about,
I decided that I wasn't gonna allow the world, men,
or this industry, to dictate how I live my life
and how I age.
I'm going to turn 50 just like I turned 30,
except, you know, my knees--
- Are a little different. - They're different.
But, you know, I'm not going to buy into my career is over,
or life for me is over, or sexy is over,
or I shouldn't wear this, I'm gon do what I feel.
- If you wouldn't have told me that, I would've had no idea.
- That's so fun. - That's it.
Because I can't believe it,
I just looked up one day and I was turning 50.
I was like, oh, that how fast it happens to these babies
out here.
It happens that fast, like seriously,
and if you have kids--
(Taraji and Kelly chattering)