TORONTO – Last Saturday, in a packed theater at the TIFF Lightbox, Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae watched 20 minutes of cut scenes from their new film “Hidden Figures” with a public audience. None of the actresses had seen anything from the historical drama outside of the trailer and their response at the Q&A afterward was to put it bluntly, emotional.
“I guess since we were in it we didn’t understand. Well, we understood, but you have to separate who you are as a person when you becomes someone else,” Spencer says. “Oh, lord we’re gonna cry.”
Directed and co-written by Theodore Melfi (“St. Vincent”), the 20th Century Fox release tells the true story of three African-American women who were integral to NASA’s efforts to launch the Friendship 7 capsule with astronaut John Glenn on board into space and then land it safely back on earth. It’s an important part of history that has shockingly been swept under the rug until now.
The project came to executive producer Mimi Valdes in the form of an unpublished manuscript with the same title by Margot Lee Shetterly. She then pitched it to producer and Grammy winner Pharrell Williams who has been looking to his increase his feature film projects.
“I’ll never forget the call when Mimi told me about the meeting. She’s like, ‘ You’re never gonna believe this story. It’s three African American women, math, science, NASA’ And my hometown of Hampton, West Virginia,” Williams says. “And it does become emotional because while this story was happening this women were operating, dreaming and engineering a matrix that was stacked against them; sexist, racism, discrimination. It’s just crazy. How could you not be involved in this? I’m happy to even be a dot in the sentence of what they are doing.”
According to Valdes, the film became a “self fulfilling prophecy” where Fox moved quickly to get it into production.
“Once a project has that much good will it just has to be made. As someone said ‘It was the time.’ All of us felt it,” Valdes says. “These women were the first women we all went to for these parts and they all thankfully said yes.”
For Henson, an Oscar nominee who is nominated for an Emmy for the second year in a row for “Empire,” there was no question she wanted to play the lead role, legendary NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson.
“I said, ‘Hell, yes,’” Henson says eliciting a round of laughter from the audience. “Because I needed a departure from Cookie. Not only that but when I got into this industry I never fell in love with acting for the accolades. Y’know, I’m a girl from the hood, O.K.? I didn’t grow up with much. So, all I had was dreams and hope and the reason why this is so overwhelming is when you come from a place where you have no dreams, no hope and all you see is that people who look like you don’t belong or they have no place in society? This story is important. If I had known about these women coming up maybe I would have aspired to be a rocket scientist. Not to say that I have a bad journey, but what I’m saying is that nowadays this is all kids of color feel like they have: sports, rap, acting and there is so much more important work to be done. And to be part of a project that will give children like me where I grew up…to dream a different dream I can’t even quite put it into words. It really feels surreal right now.”
Monáe, who plays the fiery Mary Jackson, continues as Henson wipes away a few tears. She notes, “I just want to say I haven’t had the [acting] experience of Taraji or Octavia, I look up to them so much. They are just geniuses and to help tell these stories of these American heroes I think it transcends race. I just see heroes. I’m proud as a woman. I’m proud as a minority. I’m proud as an American to know that superheroes are women! And they are new superheroes as well and they can actually be real in the real world. In all the ghettos around the world everywhere you look young girls and young boys can be inspired to dream bigger, to change the world.”
Spencer plays Dorothy Vaughan, the interim acting supervisor of the women hired to calculate figures on for the project (“Interim because it was a long room for her to enter to her title, but she did finally achieve it.”). As the preview demonstrated, her talents were much more significant than just organizing a workforce.
“For those who don’t know, the first IBM [computer] fit into a room about half this size and they couldn’t get it to work,” Spencer says. “And the truth is Dorothy could disassemble anything and put it back together. She would sneak over and work in the lab trying to figure out how to get it to work. [and she] actually did get the IBM to work.”
Spencer continues, “She had the foresight to know that once computers started to work she’d be out of a job so she knew she would actually have to learn to program it. So, she got the book and taught herself and then taught all the black women and then the white women were taught the program. She taught all of the women so they could be of value. As we now know no women, black or white, were mentioned in ‘Apollo 13’ or any other movie [about that time]. For me, I’m sad that Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jackson won’t see this day, but I’m excited that Katherine Johnson will.”
Henson feels “Hidden Figures” represents hope and that’s one reason why she’s so happy to be a part of it. She implores, “This world is looking really scary right now. We need hope and the universe conjures up what it needs when it needs it and I believe this movie is needed right now.”
‘Figures’ is hitting theaters nationwide on Jan. 13, 2017, but will open in limited release on Christmas Day for Oscar qualifying. There are some who are dismissive of what appears at first glance to be a by the numbers biopic will truly speak to The Academy. Based on the footage shown in Toronto those skeptics may want to reconsider that stance.
In one particular scene, Johnson (Henson) pleads with one of her superiors, Paul Stafford (Jim Parsons) to let her attend a daily meeting on the Friendship 7 mission. The weight of the capsule keeps changing and without being part of the discussion it’s making her job calculating a safe reentry almost impossible. Stafford is simply not interested because the idea of a woman let alone an African American woman attend the meeting? It’s just not done. A chance meeting with Al Harrison (Kevin Costner), the head of the entire space program changes that and Johnson attends even though she gets quizzical looks across the massive conference table. When the issue of determining whether Johnson’s figures for landing the capsule are questioned she volunteers to go up to the chalkboard and explain her findings. Johnson then whips out an incredibly long mathematical formula that takes up the entire board and proves her calculations.
What’s so impressive about the scene is that Melfi simply lets it play out in real time. There’s no operatic score. No cut to dismissive or snarky comments from those also attending. Johnson writes it out turns around and her superiors are shocked (except for a beaming John Glenn played by Glenn Powell). It was actually quite moving and powerful to watch simply because today we now how ridiculous their reaction is. (And big hint to Mr. Melfi who is still editing: please do not add any score during this scene. It’s simply not necessary.)
These sort of moments have caused the awards season buzz for “Figures” and its cast to grow, but at this point the opinion of one particular person is more important to Henson than anyone else.
“People come up to me and they go, ‘Oh, Oscars!’ Y’know, everybody wants to put that pressure. I don’t accept that pressure,” Henson says. “What I was most concerned about was if Katherine would be proud because she’s still alive. This is her story. Whether the Oscars love it, whether whoever else awards, whatever. Will she be happy? I want her to be proud of her story. That’s all I care about.”
After the Q&A Pharrell and Kim Burrell performed the original songs, “Running” and “I See A Victory,” along with others at an outside concert. You can watch the performance and the “Hidden Figures” cast introduction of it below.