'Hidden Figures' Star Taraji P. Henson Almost Gave Up Acting for Electrical Engineering, Failed Her Way Back Into Performing

Taraji P. Henson has come full circle. As a teen, the Washington, D.C. native was determined to act — but rejection from a performing arts school discouraged her from chasing the dream. She set out to study electrical engineering in college, but failed, which ultimately led her back to acting. And now, of course, Henson’s career paths A and B converge as she plays mathematician Katherine Johnson, the most prominent of several black women instrumental in the 1950s space race, in the new film Hidden Figures.

The 46-year-old actress broke down her ironic trajectory for Yahoo Movies while joined by her costars Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae, and film/music producer Pharrell Williams (watch above). “When you’re that young, you don’t understand rejection. I honestly thought that meant I couldn’t act,” Henson said of being turned away by D.C.’s Duke Ellington School of the Arts. “I turned my back on this passion that I had inside of me.”

Related: Watch our Facebook Live interview with the cast of ‘Hidden Figures’

Instead, Henson and a friend decided to attend an HBCU (historically black college/university) to study math and electrical engineering. “I’m just following her, because I don’t know what to do, I feel lost,” she said. “I’m not even good at math. I barely passed algebra… So then I go [to North Carolina A&T University] and I fail pre-cal[culus]. Meaning I can’t take any of the math, because pre-cal sets you up for all of the math. I had tutors and everything. I’m just not wired for that.”

As she put it, “Again, I had to fall on my face to really find my way back to acting. So it wasn’t that I studied math and I’m this brilliant person who turned actor. No! I suck at math.”

Still, she sure knows how to fake it.

Hidden Figures is now in theaters.

Watch the cast talk about why we’ve never heard this story before: