Fortune Cookie: Taraji P. Henson | Harper's Bazaar 

Emmys Diary: Getting Ready with Taraji P. Henson

Sarah Jessica Parker Covers The October Issue of...

London Fashion Week: The Best On The Street Style...

TV\'s Biggest Names Celebrate the 2015 Emmys

Banana Republic jacket, David Yurman rings and Pomellato rings. 

"Leopard is hot when you make it hot," Taraji P. Henson is saying, sipping champagne in a New York photo studio. As with everything Henson says, you are prone to agree. It\'s all in the delivery—complete with her huge, hyper-expressive eyes, widening and narrowing, each word arrives like she\'s announcing the winner of a prize.

But with her role as the leopard-print-loving Cookie Lyon in Fox\'s wildly populist hit Empire, it is Henson, 44, who has won. The soapy, tongue-in-cheek drama, and Cookie, the ballsy ex-con matriarch of the Lyon family, have catapulted Henson further in one short season than her 20-year acting career (and Best Supporting Actress nomination for 2008\'s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) had previously. "It was quiet, it was a quiet success," she says of her pre-Empire career. "I could still live. Now it\'s like … " When it comes to television in 2015, Henson is queen of the jungle.

While she feels a whoosh of sudden fame, Henson has also done her homework. "I always studied Bette Davis," she explains. "When I did my first film, Baby Boy, [director] John Singleton\'s mother called me \'Bette Davis Eyes.\' So I bought Bette\'s entire collection. She can say so much with her eyes. It all bubbles under the surface." On cue, Henson opens hers like blinds from a window. "The best actors I\'ve worked with in life said, \'If you\'re going to steal, steal from the best.\'"

Henson has eyes, but the cultish Cookie has quotes, enough to fill an urban dictionary. Like the insta-classic "The streets ain\'t made for everybody, that\'s why they made sidewalks." She has memes: Cookie plus Cookie Monster. And she has gifs: "You\'re messing with the wrong bitch." Cookie is the gif that keeps on giving.

In January, after Empire had aired only two episodes, Henson\'s costar Terrence Howard, who plays her ex-husband, Lucious Lyon, told her that she\'d become "an icon in two weeks."

Dolce & Gabbana dress, Early Halloween hat, Oliver Goldsmith Sunglasses.

"I was like, \'Huh?\'" Henson recalls. "Then I got on Twitter and was like, \'You\'re right.\' I\'ve seen babies dressed up like Cookie, men dressed up like Cookie, dogs dressed up like Cookie." She offers a sly note. "But you have to be into drag. If you\'re not, it may not come off right." Her favorite Cookie outfit so far? "Alaïa black catsuit, hands down. I\'ve even worn some of my own stuff, like my Balmain leather. I have to meet [Balmain designer] Olivier Rousteing; I need to be his friend."

In person, the voluble Henson has Cookie rising. "I have a lot of Cookie tendencies that I cannot act on," she says, adding with a sigh, "You know, I\'d go to jail." She calls Cookie her "Sasha Fierce," but she is in fact modeled on Henson\'s late father: "He had no buffer. He spoke the truth." She continues, heating up. "It\'s heroic because in this society we have been trained to be politically correct. Political correctness is bullshit. If I ask you a question right now, the first thing that comes in your mind is the truth. But we\'ve all been trained to breathe, digest the question, and manipulate the answer. Cookie doesn\'t do that."

"It took me a minute to get on the chic bus." —Taraji P. Henson

Henson doesn\'t much, either. Growing up in Washington, D.C., she completed a theater degree at Howard University and worked as a secretary at the Pentagon before taking up acting. "It took me a minute to get on the chic bus," she says. "I was coming from the era of Lil\' Kim and Mary J. Blige, you know, ghetto fabulous. I came from nothing, was deprived all my life, so when you get money, you go big!" She credits her publicist\'s fashion advice, "You should do black." She cackles. "You should see my closet now—black, black, black." And Henson keeps everything: outfits she\'s worn to win roles, especially. "One day I\'ll be famous enough or important enough where people will want my shit like Elizabeth Taylor\'s."

Back on the chic bus, Henson is in seat 1A. At the Critics\' Choice Television Awards in May, she accepted her award for Best Actress in a black velvet chain-trimmed halter dress by Alexander Wang. "When I first saw Taraji as Cookie in Empire, I was in love," says Wang, who now counts Henson as a friend. "She is a breath of fresh air. Rarely do I meet people in this industry who are as down-to-earth and real as she is. The first time we met was in London at a fitting for the Met Gala, and within the first five minutes I felt like I\'d known her for a lifetime. She doesn\'t take fashion or this industry too seriously, and I love her for that." But seriously enough to show up—Henson also presented an award at fashion\'s insider Olympics, the CFDAs. After all, fashion people enjoy a camp heroine as much as they do vintage Saint Laurent.

Of the \'60s era of Jacqueline de Ribes, the inspiration for the portraits on these pages, Henson says, "What stuck out for me at that time was Jackie Onassis. I watched a lot of Lucille Ball. What else … Dallas?" She bursts out laughing. "But that is not the \'60s."

Henson loves to get her sexy on—witness her split-to-bits black Alexandre Vauthier at the Billboard Music Awards—but says, "You know what taught me to calm down the sexy? The Bridges of Madison County. Meryl basically had on muumuus that had a waistline, buttoned up to her neck. She was so sexy. Sexy is leaving more to the imagination."

The allure of Cookie, of course, is that she leaves nothing to the imagination. When people meet Henson, do they expect the Cookie Show? "It\'s hard," she says. "But I\'m a woman now; I have a kid [son Marcell] who\'s 21. I\'m not sensationalized; I\'m not all into the celebrity. This is a job. I love what I do, but I am clear it is a job."

Since the dawn of the Cookie era, however, she has noticed "a lot of fair-weather friends. Oh, they are coming out of the woodwork.… My son is very in tune with that. My dad said to him, \'People are going to try to be your friend because of what your mother does.\' That stuck. Even guys who try to be a mentor to him—because, you know, his father was murdered when Marcell was nine—so I was very particular about not dating." She pauses. "I don\'t want to just bring a man around. Marcell knows how to gauge, Are you here for me, or do you like my mother?"

Henson is currently single. This is her type: "He is funny, has personality, he doesn\'t take himself too seriously. He needs to be confident in who he is, confident to let me be who I am. And let me shine, you know? My light is only going to enhance his light."

Right now Henson\'s light is on blast. She\'s been in Chicago filming the second season of Empire, and is preparing to shoot Empire creator Lee Daniels\'s biopic of Richard Pryor (Mike Epps will play Pryor, and Henson is his mother, Gertrude). But you won\'t be seeing her swanning around in animal print anytime soon. "I don\'t wear leopard anymore," she announces, with a grand final sip of champagne. "Not since I got Cookie."

Roberto Cavalli caftan, Rings, Pomellato, John Hardy, David Yurman, and Roberto Coin. 

Hair: Tomi Kono; makeup: Sammy Mourabit for Trucatore Inc.; manicure: Gina Edwards for Chanel Le Vernis.​

This article originally appeared in the September 2015 issue of Harper\'s BAZAAR.

Taraji P. Henson, Kerry Washington, & Mary J. Blige Had the Ultimate \'90s Dance Party

Can Viola Davis win all of them from here on out? By

See The Full List of Winners From The 2015 Emmy Awards

\'Game of Thrones\' swept the evening, taking home 12 awards. By

What the beauty maven is excited about now—from a sumptuous pair of Marni boots to an idyllic getaway. By