Taraji & Terrence Cover Of Emmy Mag!

With its flashy mix of music and melodrama, Fox's Empire ruled the ratings this spring — and topped itself, week after week... 





Taraji P. Henson knew everybody would be buzzing about her someday. Her father had a premonition.

It was 2006, and Boris Henson was nearing the end of an ill-fated battle with cancer. Soon his actress-daughter would not only be attending the Academy Awards but performing that year's Best Original Song, "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp," from her film Hustle & Flow, which costarred Terrence Howard.

As she sat at her father's hospital bedside, filling him in on the major career milestone she was about to reach — one he wouldn't live to see — "He was like, 'Baby, that ain't nothin'. You are going to be a sensation,'" the Empire star recounts now. "He was looking off into the distance, and I think he saw what was coming.

"At the time, I was like, 'What you see? Shoot, I want to see it!'" continues Henson, who was Oscar-nominated for her performance in 2008's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Emmy-nommed for the 2011 Lifetime film Taken From Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story. "Time went on, and I'm getting older. I ain't no spring chicken. I'm thinking, 'Maybe the Oscar [nod] was it.' Then [Empire] comes along, and it blows up, and it's like, 'Okay, Daddy, this is what you were talking about.' He saw this moment right here."

And what a moment it is. Fueled by explosive performances from a reunited Henson and Howard, Empire has become TV's hottest hit.

Co-created by Danny Strong and Lee Daniels, Fox's hip-hop family drama revolves around drug dealer-turned-music mogul Lucious Lyon (Howard), who, after being diagnosed with ALS, decides he must choose a successor from among his three sons: Andre (Trai Byers), the company's ambitious, Ivy League-educated COO who struggles with bipolar disorder; Jamal (Jussie Smollett), a sensitive singer-songwriter who comes out publicly as gay, much to his father's horror; and Hakeem (Bryshere Gray), a cocky, budding rap star with mommy-abandonment issues,

When the family matriarch — Lucious's ex-wife Cookie (Henson) — wraps up a 17-year prison stint for the drug-running that helped fund her ex's company, she sets out to reconnect with her children and stake her claim to half of Empire Entertainment.

A flashy mix of melodrama, Timbaland-produced music, high-wattage guest stars (hello, Jennifer Hudson and Courtney Love!) and provocative twists — from sexy hookups to go-for-broke catfights to more than one murder — Empire is an exhilarating ride.

But it's not all soapy fun and games, Boo Boo Kitties. The dysfunctional family relationships — particularly the combustible chemistry between Lucious and Cookie, as well as the painful disconnect between Jamal and his homophobic father — have an emotional heft that helps to ground the series' more over-the-top moments.

It's that unique combination that has made the show a pop-culture phenomenon, says executive producer and showrunner llene Chaiken (her fellow exec producers are Strong and Daniels, plus Brian Grazer and Francie Calfo, chairman and president, respectively, of Imagine Entertainment; Timbaland is a music executive producer).

"We make big moves that make you gasp, but there are also really deep and profound human moments," Chaiken observes. "And I don't think those things are necessarily distinct from each other. You can scream at your television and still feel great humanity for the characters at the same time."

Call it an Empire state of mind. A midseason hit right out of the gate, the series defied conventional broadcast wisdom and posted audience gains with each passing week, culminating with nearly 17 million viewers for its March season finale. (It was the most-watched new series season-ender since Grey's Anatomy a decade ago.)

Its record-breaking run "exceeded any possible expectation we had for the show," admits Dana Walden, who last summer began overseeing the network with her Fox Television Group cochair Gary Newman.

"It feels bold. It feels original. It has an extraordinary cast. You can't take your eyes away from the screen because you're waiting for that next OMG moment."

Maybe no one is more surprised by Empire's success than the man who reigns over it all.

"I didn't know that the American public was really ready to tackle some of these issues that we're tackling, especially the African-American population," Howard says. "With the homophobia that runs through there, I didn't think a lot of the scenes that we've had would be welcome. I thought 20 minutes in[to the first episode], by the time they had the first [same-sex] kiss, it would be a wrap. Everybody would change the channel."

Together with other hits this past season — like ABC's How to Get Away with Murder, black-ish, Fresh Off the Boat and American Crime — Empire has helped prove that viewers are eager to watch shows with casts as diverse as the world we live in.

"Ultimately, I think we might be part of doing something that's good for television," Grazer says, "and good for an audience that has traditionally been ignored."

Adds Walden: "For a long time, people have asked, 'What's it going to take for shows to really reflect our audience?' And you know what it takes? Big fat hits."

Empire's leading lady is proud to be a part of this project at this particular time in TV history. "I haven't seen anybody like Cookie on prime-time television before," says Henson, who's aware she's found the role of a lifetime in the straight-shooting, designer label-loving, ferociously loyal mama Lyon.

Still, after nearly 20 years in the business, becoming the Hollywood sensation her father predicted is taking some getting used to. "People are coming out of the woodwork, people I hadn't heard from in years," she reports. "It's like, 'Wait a minute. Where you been? What made you want to call me now?' And I can't go anywhere [without being recognized]. People are calling me Cookie. Cookie's on a hiatus right now. And Cookie is not Taraji. But I get it. It's fan love..."