The 'Hidden Figures' Cast Explain Why We've Never Heard About NASA's Groundbreaking Mathematicians

Two thoughts cross your mind when you hear the premise of Hidden Figures, the upcoming drama, based on a true story, about three African-American women who were instrumental in the early days of the space race.

One: that plot has the potential to make one inspiring movie. And two: Wait a minute, how come we’ve never heard about these women before?

“No idea,” star Taraji P. Henson told Yahoo Movies when she spoke to us last month. (Watch the video above.) “That’s the question we all asked,” added Janelle Monae. “I thought it was fiction,” admitted Octavia Spencer.

Henson, Monae, and Spencer play Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughn, respectively, three mathematicians who helped make the first American space flights of the early 1960s possible.

“I don’t think NASA hid it — I think the circumstances of that era hid it,” said Pharell Williams, a producer on the Theodore Melfi-directed film, who also oversaw the film’s music and soundtrack.

“As a black woman, I was very upset about it,” actress-singer Monae told us. “When I read the script, I cried, and I just knew that I had to be a part of making sure this story was told and hidden no more.”

Spencer (who won an Oscar for The Help) explained why she thought the screenplay was a work of fiction: “I couldn’t believe that this story hadn’t been told. Because surely, if this had happened, if these women had been so integral to the space race, all the movies, all the books, all the information out there would have, at least, tipped a hat to them.”

They didn’t get their due in films like Apollo 13 (as Henson points out, Johnson’s math helped those imperiled astronauts return to Earth.) But these women are finally getting the hero treatment in Hidden Figures, which has a movie poster that looks like it could’ve been designed by Marvel.

“They were superheroes,” said Henson (Empire). “Unsung heroes.”

Hidden Figures opens Jan. 13.

Watch the trailer: