Emmy Round Table: Taraji P. Henson: ‘I’m not a fur person ... but I don’t judge my characters’
From putting Sharpie in your hair to imagining kicking baby birds, drama actors Felicity Huffman (“American Crime”), Alan Cumming (“The Good Wife”), and others talk about getting into character.
You always hear about actors figuring out their character’s motivation and back story before really jumping into a role. But once they’ve been in that role for a bit, sometimes all it takes to jump in and out of that skin is a little external boost.
For the actors gathered at The Envelope’s recent Emmy Drama Roundtable -- Alan Cumming (“The Good Wife”), Taraji P. Henson (“Empire”), Felicity Huffman (“American Crime”), Michael Sheen (“Masters of Sex”) and Sissy Spacek (“Bloodline”) -- all it takes is a tie, or furs, or silver Sharpie ink.
“I like to kick baby birds,” Huffman joked about her less than likable character, Barb. Sheen puts on the tie and changes his hair and feels like Bill Masters taking over (sometimes more than he’d like); for Henson it’s those crazy furs that Cookie wears (“I’m not a fur person, I’m just not interested in dead animals on me, but I don’t judge my characters”).
And for Cumming, it’s the prominent hair. First in the form of a wig (“It’s up for an Emmy”), and then came the Sharpie.
See what he had to say about that ordeal in the video clip above and check out other Emmy conversations about your favorite shows.
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