When I think about that particular moment, I fall out in fits of laughter because, really, the audacity of me—some drama undergrad with no professional experience outside of the Howard University stage, a ThighMaster infomercial, and my job singing Tina Turner songs on that dinner barge—thinking I could book a job off a résumé and headshot! Spike Lee had never, to my knowledge, been to one of my plays, he’d never pulled up a seat on the Spirit of Washington while I belted out “Proud Mary,” and he sure as hell didn’t know me from a hole in the wall. I was wet behind the ears—didn’t know any better. I just knew somehow I’d impressed Spike and he wanted me. My mother, too, was in lockstep on that assessment: just before she drove me to the airport, she was racing around her office, telling anyone within the sound of her voice, “Spike Lee picked my baby to star in his movie!” In our minds, Taraji P. Henson was about to blow up.
I arrived in New York with my outdated suitcase, big and burgundy and all kinds of wrong, dressed in that same head-to-toe leopard suit I was wearing when I got the call from Tracie back at dance class, looking country as shit, standing on the sidewalk outside Lincoln Center, sucking in that thick air and crackling energy buzzing like lightning all around me while I waited for Tracie to pick me up. I wanted to shout to everyone who walked by, “I’m starring in Spike Lee’s new movie!” But I knew enough to at least play it a little bit cool on those streets, where New Yorkers are always in a rush and woefully unimpressed by pretty much everything in general and wet-nosed tourists in particular; I saved my ninja kicks and cheerleader jumps for Tracie, who also had secured a role.
• • •
Tracie and I tracked down our contact, some lady with a clipboard and an attitude lording over the “extras” base camp blocks away from the Harlem set where the scene was to be filmed. In my mind, I’d envisioned that she would usher us to a quiet room somewhere on the set, where Spike would welcome us, offer us something to eat, then sit us down to go over the script and ask us what, exactly, was the motivation we’d have to employ to get into character. Instead, the lady with the clipboard pointed, and at the end of her finger was a dusty tent crowded with random people sitting around, mindlessly chewing on snacks and jockeying for empty chairs.
We were extras. Extras. Chile, I believed I’d had a starring role. I was so ahead of myself.
To understand the gravity of this situation, you need to understand the life of an extra. For the most part, it sucks. Rain, hail, sleet, or snow, you’re rounded up like cattle and herded into a small area where you and a bunch of strangers sit practically on top of one another while you wait for hours to get your hair and makeup done, then a few hours more to get your costume just right, and then a few more hours on top of that waiting for strategic placement somewhere on the set, where your every movement is choreographed down to the angle in which you should point your pinky toe—all in exchange for some snacks and a couple of dollars for your pocket. The perks? Few. Except that if your people squint their eyes a little bit, lean in real close to the screen, and get really handy with the pause button, somebody might see you, which’ll make you hood famous, but not much else besides one step closer to your Screen Actors Guild (SAG) card if you’re lucky enough to get a SAG-sanctioned gig.
I needed more than that, though. I wasn’t trying to be a blip on anybody’s screen; we needed to hatch a plan. Tracie and I hustled ourselves over to the snack table for the non-SAG-card extras, then found our way over to two empty seats and understood rather quickly what was our lot. I bit into my cookie and surveyed the landscape. The SAG-card extras were throwing shade, acting like they had one up on those of us who were nonunion. “See, this shit right here, I can’t do,” I huffed. “The only thing they got different,” I said, nodding toward the SAG extras, “is a bagel. We gotta eat the cookies and drink the Tang, and they got bagels and orange juice, which ain’t that much better, so go sit down somewhere.”
Anyone who’s ever been an extra on a television or film production knows I’m telling the God’s honest truth. That’s the grind. No one in charge is purposefully mean, and extras know not to take any of it personally. They know they’re on set to do what it is they’ve been asked to do, and they get the job done. And those in charge know that without them, our movies and television shows wouldn’t look real. In other words, we need extras.
• • •
Knowing that struggle firsthand, I make a point of treating extras on my sets with the respect and dignity they deserve. I make them laugh, make them feel welcomed, and, in some cases, like a former waitress who tips well because she knows the struggle, I fight for equitable treatment among the extras because, hell, it’s only right. Take, for instance, what happened on the set of Seasons of Love, the 2014 Lifetime original movie I executive produced and starred in with LeToya Luckett. One day while strolling the set, I overheard someone, presumably a SAG-card-carrying extra, order a non-SAG-card extra off a food line. “Only SAG extras can eat here,” he sneered. With flashbacks to the hierarchy on the Malcolm X set, I did what I could to make it so that everybody under the extras tent felt wanted: I ordered a waffle truck and invited the extras to dig in. “Everybody, eat up,” I said. “This is for whoever wants waffles, no matter if you’re SAG or not.”
On the New Orleans set of From the Rough, the movie in which I starred as Dr. Catana Starks, the first woman to coach a men’s college golf team, I actually got a little miffed about how no one seemed to care that the extras were literally baking in the hot summer sun, with nary a tent, umbrella, or drop of water in sight to help keep them comfortable while they waited hours to play their parts. “If y’all don’t get a tent on those people right now and get them some water and some chairs, I’m calling SAG!” I barked. No one was trying to make them uncomfortable on purpose; someone pointed out to me that the production assistants were working on providing that critical relief to the extras, but they were just dragging on and on. “Get it out there, shit,” I said, stalking off.
• • •
As an extra, though, you have to learn how to take care of yourself, too. And that’s what Tracie and I did on the set of Malcolm X. Within minutes of sitting under that tent, Tracie and I were plotting how to go from being extras eating donuts in Spike’s and Denzel’s eyes to actresses who would be so impressive, so magnetic, Spike would be all, “It’s you two!” and Denzel would chime in, “Damn, it’s y’all!” We were trying to work this thing. That’s when the hustle “Operation Get Seen in Denzel’s Scene” went into full effect.
We were hired to be in the crowd listening to Malcolm X deliver a sermon about cops being the “new KKK” on a Harlem street corner, and we made it our mission to get to the front row, right in front of Denzel and especially right in front of the camera. It was going to take some work because there were a lot of extras. But Tracie and I had some ideas. First and foremost, we needed to look the part, which meant we had to make especially nice with two of the most important departments on the set: wardrobe, and hair and makeup.
“Oh, you’re going to have to cover up that hair,” the stylist in the hair department said as she circled around my chair, checking out my then-blond tresses.