After winning a Golden Globe for her portrayal of the irrepressible Cookie on Fox’s “Empire,” Taraji P. Henson has booked a new gig that will see her playing another fearless female.
Henson will bring the too-little-known story of Katherine Johnson to the big screen in Fox 2000’s “Hidden Figures.”
The pioneering American physicist, mathematician and space scientist played an instrumental role in the history-making moment when an American astronaut orbited Earth for the first time. Johnson and her colleagues, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, provided invaluable guidance and calculations in the planning of the 1962 Friendship 7 Mission.
Prior to her tenure at NASA, Johnson was a teacher. Over the span of her career, she co-authored over 25 scientific papers. President Barack Obama awarded Johnson, who is now 97 years old, a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015.
The script is an adaptation of Margot Lee Shetterly’s book “Hidden Figures: The Story of the African-American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race.”
Variety reports that Elizabeth Gabler and Marisa Paiva will oversee the project for Fox 2000.
[via Variety]
