Taraji Penda Henson is an American actress and author. She studied acting at Howard University and began her Hollywood career in guest-roles on several television shows before making her breakthrough in Baby Boy. She received praise for playing a prostitute in Hustle & Flow and a single mother in David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; for the latter, she received Academy Award, SAG Award and Critics Choice Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress; for the former, she received a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture nomination. In 2010, she appeared in the comedy Date Night and co-starred in the remake of The Karate Kid.