Skip to footer

Taraji P. Henson: A look at her big win at the Critics' Choice TV Awards

Winners at the 2015 Critics' Choice TV Awards included 'The Americans,' 'Silicon Valley,' and actress Taraji P. Henson, who won the Best Actress in a Drama prize. Henson is the first black actress to do so and a black actress has still not yet won the equivalent prize at the Emmy Awards.

|
Danny Moloshok/Reuters
Actress Taraji P. Henson poses backstage with her award for Best Actress – Drama for her role on the series 'Empire' during the 5th Annual Critics' Choice Television Awards in Beverly Hills, California.

The Critics’ Choice TV Awards, which were given out on May 31, included a milestone for one of its acting categories. 

Taraji P. Henson of “Empire” became the first African-American actress to win the Best Actress in a Drama Series award. The Critics’ Choice TV Awards have been held since 2011, and the previous winners are Claire Danes, Julianna Margulies, and Tatiana Maslany, who has won the award twice. 

Henson thanked Fox, the network on which her TV show airs, during her acceptance speech, according to the Hollywood Reporter. 

“You took a risk, and that’s what art is about,” she said of the network. “I take a risk every time I take a character. And boy, did I take a risk with Cookie.”

A black actor has yet to win the Best Actor in a Drama prize, a Best Actor or Actress in a Comedy award, or the Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy prize at the Critics' Choice TV Awards. In addition, a black actress has never won the Best Actress in a Drama Emmy Award, according to the website TVLine. Last year, Kerry Washington was nominated in the category for “Scandal.” 

Actress Hattie McDaniel won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, the first black actress to do so, for her appearance in “Gone With the Wind,” while Sidney Poitier became the first black actor to win the Oscar for Best Actor for his work in “Lilies of the Field.” Louis Gossett, Jr. was the first black actor to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar and did so for “An Officer and a Gentleman,” while Halle Berry was the first black actress to take the Best Actress prize and won it for her work in “Monster’s Ball.” 

The other actresses nominated in Henson's category at the Critics' Choice TV Awards included Vera Farmiga for “Bates Motel,” Viola Davis for “How to Get Away With Murder,” Julianna Margulies for “The Good Wife,” Keri Russell for “The Americans,” and Eva Green for “Penny Dreadful.” 

Other big winners included “The Americans,” which won the best drama prize; “Silicon Valley,” which won the prize for best comedy; Bob Odenkirk, who took the best actor in a drama prize for his work in the TV series “Better Call Saul”; Jeffrey Tambor, who won the Best Actor in a Comedy award for “Transparent”; and Amy Schumer, who won the Best Actress in a Comedy prize for her show “Inside Amy Schumer.”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Taraji P. Henson: A look at her big win at the Critics' Choice TV Awards
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Culture-Cafe/2015/0601/Taraji-P.-Henson-A-look-at-her-big-win-at-the-Critics-Choice-TV-Awards
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe