Nothing in the script gave a description of this seamstress or her motivation beyond the fact that the dress she picks for Deena is rejected, but I spent countless hours considering that seamstress’s motivation nonetheless. What expression would she have while presenting the gown to Deena? How would she walk on the way to Deena? How would she slink away after the rejection? All of it. I even dreamed up her costume: little framed glasses, stockings under a frumpy dress with slouchy knee-high socks, a zaniness about the colors. She was nobody to everybody, but I made her somebody to me.
When opening night came, I was ready. My heart was beating so fast on the side of that stage waiting for my part, I’m surprised I didn’t pass out. Finally, Deena said the line that gave me my queue. I sashayed across that stage with a gown I thought was the most beautiful dress in the world, matched only by my wide, beaming grin. Everything about my body language said, “Yes, Deena, of course you will choose my dress for your world tour.”
Deena, unimpressed, opened the garment bag and angrily tossed it back at me, throwing in a few choice words for good measure and telling me to get the hell out of her sight. Devastated but convinced I’d been wronged, I stomped back across the stage, stopped midway, tossed a nasty side-eye at Deena, and then stomped out the door without saying a word.
I was on the other side of the curtain, giggling with nervous laughter, floating with excitement when my ears were finally able to focus on the audience’s reaction: they were hysterical with laughter. Out of everything that was happening onstage, it was my timing and foolery that they remembered—a moment that came at the end of a transition scene. I may have had a bit part, but I was in Dreamgirls, and folk who counted were paying attention, including my mother. She wasn’t convinced there was a career in acting, and having scrimped and saved to get three steps forward only to consistently fall two steps behind, she wanted something more secure for me than “starving artist.” That’s all she could see for me, her child who was born with neither silver spoon nor serious connection to Hollywood, a glittery mirage seemingly so far from reach it might as well have been on the other side of the galaxy. Her questions made sense: “I’m a single mom, how on earth can I support you in this? What if you can’t get a job? Then what?” It was hard to argue against her judgment. But on the opening night of Dreamgirls, when she watched me strutting across that stage, finally she saw me, and she pledged her unconditional support.
When I wasn’t working on my role, I was still prop mistress, but I continued studying everyone else’s roles, too; I knew every line, every song, every stage direction, where every prop lay. When a fellow student with a key role as a singer in the opening of the play had to drop out, I was ready. Professor Malone took to the stage to announce her part was open, and I jumped at the chance to play it.
“I got it! I can do it!” I shouted, raising my hand like some nerd eager to answer the teacher’s question.
Professor Malone shook his head, looked me up and down, and smirked. “Well, you better get your heels and come in here tomorrow ready to show me what you got.”
“I have my heels right here!” I said, reaching down into my knapsack.
“All right, then get your ass up here and sing the song,” he said.
I hurriedly slipped on my shoes and took my position as the music director counted down, and when he got to “one,” I hit every last one of the steps and notes with a jubilance that made the entire cast cheer me on. When, finally, they all quieted, I looked over at Professor Malone, eager to hear the magical words. “Well,” he said, “I guess you got the part.”
The next thing I knew, the show was such a hit, it was selling out every night, with fans from near and far coming to see the wonder that was the Howard University Theatre’s Dreamgirls production. So successful was the first run that Professor Malone revived it for a second run the next academic year, catching the attention of a major theater producer from Hong Kong who happened to be in DC. That producer loved the play so much that he paid for our entire production—the actors, the directors, the wardrobe, the props, everything—to fly to Hong Kong for a two-week run, which, too, quickly sold out, upstaging even a professional production of 42nd Street. Fans were showing up to our fancy hotel, waiting in the lobby to get our autographs and take pictures with the cast. It was surreal—until then, except for summers down south with my family, I’d never been out of the country, but there I was, living out loud every fantasy I’d ever had of traveling the world as an actress. “Shoot, I’m on the right page,” I said, hugging myself as I gazed out the window overlooking the hills of Hong Kong, my best friend by my side. You couldn’t tell us a single, solitary thing; the hotel was lovely—on par with the Mandarin Oriental in New York, which meant it was first class all the way, with beautifully appointed rooms I’d never before seen or experienced. The shades and curtains opened electronically with the push of a button; this twenty-year-old girl, a product of southeast DC, had never seen anything like that. “This right here is it—exactly how we’re supposed to be treated,” I said to Tracie, who nodded furiously in agreement. “I can get used to this!”
• • •
It was my strong work ethic that earned me a spot on the Dreamgirls stage, but it was my confidence and hustle that got me into the camera line of a scene in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, smack-dab in front of Denzel Washington. That particular hustle started back at Howard, during a workshop Spike gave at our university’s drama department. Spike was the gawd back then—an African American filmmaker whose unflinching, unapologetic commentary on black American life not only ushered in a cinematic and cultural renaissance for moviegoers, but also opened doors for black folk both in front of and behind the camera. By the time he made it to Howard, he’d already gotten crazy accolades for She’s Gotta Have It, School Daze, Do the Right Thing, and Mo’ Better Blues, and everybody on campus was trying to get next to him, knowing he was still casting for Malcolm X. So my girlfriend Tracie and I got ourselves all super-cute and hightailed it over to the lecture hall. Though we tried, we couldn’t get anywhere near Spike. We settled for making nice with a guy in his entourage, some bugaboo who was trying to holler. I practically held my nose and gagged while I shoved both my and Tracie’s headshots into his hands. “Look, just take these pictures and give them to Spike,” I said, with an attitude and half a smile.
I knew he wasn’t a casting agent, and I have no idea if he actually gave those pictures to Spike Lee or not, but in my mind, what we did worked. A few weeks later, I was in dance class doing pliés when Tracie put in a frantic call to the drama department office and made herself sound super-official. She told whoever answered the phone that Spike Lee wanted me in a movie. The girl from the office hoofed it down the stairs and burst into the studio with the news. “Taraji!” she said, barely able to catch her breath. “You got a call from New York about Malcolm X!”
“Oh my God,” I screamed, cupping my hands over my mouth and falling down to my knees like I’d just hit the lottery and won an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Grammy all in the same night. The class erupted into a gaggle of squeals and high fives as I hurriedly squeezed myself into my street clothes: a fabulous all-leopard outfit featuring a vintage coat with a matching skirt and, yes, the hat. I tipped out of that dance class fresh dressed like a million bucks, hopped in my car, and crushed a few speeding laws rushing to my apartment to pack my clothes and hightail it to New York on a seventy-five-dollar plane ticket my mother purchased for me because as I had to pay both my rent and tuition, I was too broke to buy it on my own.