https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GedtHF5Qc_o
A few weeks ago Lee Daniels said that Mo’Nique was blackballed after winning the Oscar, something she denied. Today, she did an interview with Access Hollywood and she claims that she was offered the role of Cookie in Empire. She said, “Mr. (Lee) Daniels offered me the part of Cookie, and I have the emails and the sides to go along with it, and what he said was, ‘I’m new to this TV thing. This is just a technicality… you have the role.’ Okay. I have the emails. Well, four days have gone by because I didn’t receive a phone call or another email for the location of where I was supposed to go to do this screen test.” She then claims that she was told by the director that the network didn’t want to cast her on the show because she reportedly is difficult to work with. Co-Executive Producer, Danny Strong, strongly denies her claims and said the role was always Taraji P Henson’s.
That is a good thing because I don’t think Empire would be the hit that it is if she wasn’t cast in the lead role. Henson kills it in every scene she is in, I don’t think that Mo’Nique would’ve had that same impact. Plus, I don’t think the chemistry would’ve been as smoking as it is with Luscious and Cookie if Terrence Howard didn’t have Henson to play off of.
What do you think of an Empire with Mo’Nique instead of Taraji.
