Must List 2005: Taraji P. Henson

Age 28

Mustworthiness Forget Marge Simpson or Carmela Soprano. As the ”bottom bitch” of a poor Memphis pimp’s meager stable, Henson plays the ultimate put-upon matriarch in this summer’s Hustle & Flow. Her Shug, a prostitute who’s hopeless and pregnant — and therefore ostensibly useless — is fascinatingly hopeful.

Keeping It Disturbingly Real ”My first big job was Baby Boy [playing] a girl from the hood: single mom, jerk boyfriend. Some people in the black community may have called her stereotypical. ‘Why do you take those roles? I wouldn’t want to play a baby-mama.’ But these girls really exist. They need a voice.”

Next Hustle & Flow opens July 13. Then, Henson stretches her skill set as Andre 3000’s relatively well-adjusted spouse in John Singleton’s Four Brothers. ”She’s just a wife living in the suburbs with her husband, raising her two kids.”