{blackbabes} Taraji P. Henson can relate to 'Larry Crowne'

468x60 Getting Online Shouldn't be Tough- $7.49 .com Domains at Go Daddy

Taraji P. Henson can't seem to escape garage sales — both on and off camera.

"I was having a sale the day I met with (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button director) David Fincher," she says. "It was a Saturday, and I was mad. 'Don't you people ever take a break?' Customers were knocking at my door, and I had to ask them to come back the next day."

The hiccup in her Saturday sales turned out to be worth it. Fincher went on to hire Henson to play the role of Brad Pitt's character's adoptive mother in the film. And she received a best-supporting-actress Academy Award nomination for her work.

Then Tom Hanks came a-calling. The veteran actor wanted to know if she would be interested in playing his neighbor in Larry Crowne, a comedy he was directing and starring in. She was very interested, took the part and now stars in the film alongside Cedric the Entertainer as a married couple who make their living running a permanent odds-&-ends garage sale on their front lawn. The film opens Friday.

"Tom knows how to communicate with actors," says the 39-year-old actress during a pit stop in her publicist's Los Angeles office on her way to the gym. "He can get what he needs without belittling your choices. I'm pretty uninhibited, and with Tom I felt safe."

Larry Crowne is a comedy about a Navy veteran, played by Hanks, who is fired from his job at a big-box store and enrolls at a community college. Julia Roberts and Star Trek's George Takei star as two of his teachers. Other cast members include Wilmer Valderrama, Pam Grier and Bryan Cranston.

Henson describes the film as "a second-coming-of-age story." She explains: "Sometimes in life you find your purpose later. You could be working in the same job for 30 years, and then there's a change. It's about how you look at that change. Some could see it as a mid-life crisis."

Hanks' character chooses to view his unemployment as an opportunity, just like Henson herself did more than two decades ago when she had a similar crisis. "I was not accepted into a high school for performing arts," she says, "and it was a real awakening. … I'd been slapped in the face, and it motivated me. When I saw the people who got in and I didn't, I was like, 'Really! You'll never get a job over me. I'm going to study and train so hard!'"

With the encouragement of her late father, a metal fabricator, Henson enrolled at Howard University and graduated with a degree in theater arts. She also got pregnant, but that didn't stop her from pursuing her goal of becoming an actor.

"I'm an extreme optimist," Henson says. "Once I made the decision, I never second-guessed myself. I knew it would be challenging, but what would I be teaching my son if I wasn't living my dream? That's what drove me."

Henson left her hometown of Washington, D.C., in 1996 with $700 and her two-year-old son Marcel. "In Los Angeles I stayed with my cousin and had two months to get on my feet," she says. "I found an apartment and started doing temp work as a secretary. Eventually I found my manager (Vincent Cirrincione, who also manages Halle Berry).

Slowly and steadily Henson built her career. She started with small roles in television before getting her big break as the female lead in John Singleton's 2001 film Baby Boy. "I was lucky John was looking for new faces," she says. "He cast me and Tyrese."

Henson went on to become a regular on The Division and then Boston Legal. A role in Hustle & Flow and a subsequent performance singing at the Oscars got her noticed. "People started knowing my name, as opposed to 'that girl,'" she says.

Now her film career is booming. Last summer she played Jaden Smith's mom in the blockbuster remake of The Karate Kid. She also appeared with Tina Fey and Steve Carell in Date Night and in Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All by Myself.

Next up? A role as a nurse in the The Good Doctor, which stars Orlando Bloom in the title role. "It's a very dark movie," she says. "It's about this doctor who falls for one of his patients and the twisted things he does to keep her in the hospital."

Then in From the Rough, based on a true story, she plays a college coach trying to build up the men's golf team. "It's a story that breaks all color lines," Henson says. "These boys were outcasts in the worlds they came from. It has nothing to do with skin color."

Although Henson knows how to play golf, she understands how to coach. "I'm at all my son's basketball games," she says. "I'm always giving him pep talks. I get where a coach comes from. A coach is almost like a mom or a dad."

This fall, the actress returns to TV. She'll play a homicide detective in the new CBS series Person of Interest. The show stars Jim Caviezel as a former CIA agent and Michael Emerson as a computer whiz who stop crimes before they happen.

"(Series creator) Jonathan Nolan called me personally and said, 'I want to write for you,'" Henson says. "This is (The Dark Knight screenwriter) saying he wants to write for me!" says Henson, waving her hands around excitedly.

But she was still reluctant. "I told him about my frustrations with TV," she says. "They hire you and make you sit around. I'm a creative person. I can be rich and going nuts sitting around. I'd rather get paid half as much but have my soul and spirit fulfilled."

She also knew exactly what she didn't want to play. "I wasn't interested in being the generic pretty girl with a gun. I'm not afraid to get my knees dirty."

Nor is she afraid of nudity. Consider her poster for PETA's current "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" campaign.

"It's not, 'Oh look at me! I'm naked!'" Henson says. "It's not me sprawled on a chair. (She is standing in profile.) I'm comfortable in my skin, and I know the reason for using nudity. It's trying to catch your attention, but there's a message behind it."

Being the mother of a teenage boy did not stop Henson from taking off her clothes. "He's not a baby anymore," she says. "He'll be a senior in the fall. He gets what I'm doing. We talk about everything."

And it's not always work 24/7 for this single mom. "I can't think about business all the time," she says. "I have a life. We're looking at colleges. We have SATs.

"I'm amazed that I've been able to juggle so well. My career is just taking off now. I was there for his important years, and the projects I did didn't keep me away long. As he grew, my career grew. I couldn't have planned it any better."