Terrence Howard Empire

There are only a few actors that can exude the amount of “cool” that actor Terrence Howard comes across on screen. And few can find where he gets it from. It’s not like he hasn’t had his fair share of troubling time. From his mother losing her battle with cancer, to having to get fit for his latest role in “Empire” (a grueling 100 push-ups in between takes) and his failed marriages, he’s been pushed to the limit. But Terrence pushes back.

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For most of his career, Howard was pretty much the kind of kid you do not want to hire; it was (and still is) his way or no way. Years ago, for example, he read for a movie about the Motown group the Temptations. “[I was] told to prepare two scenes,” Howard recalls. “I’m halfway through the first scene, and the director is already looking at the next guy’s résumé, and he says, ‘Thank you.’ The monster came over me at that moment, and I said, ‘Excuse me. Thank you for what? Normally, when somebody says thank you, it’s because you’ve done something that is so incredible they cannot help but express their appreciation. Now I’m wondering what I did that was so wonderful that made you interrupt me in the middle of my performance? If you want me to leave, then you say so.’ I got my stuff together and left, and they never called me back in again. I don’t know that director’s name to this day, but I bet you he knows mine.”

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Some might call this approach integrity; others, arrogance. Either way, it’s pure Howard, and he does not apologize for it: “A lot of people are told to check their manhood at the gate in this business. I won’t do that.”

This tough-guy stance and the notion of never backing down—even at great cost—was imprinted in Howard from a young age. On December 21, 1971, standing in line to meet Santa at a Cleveland department store, 2-year-old Terrence watched his father, Tyrone, a contractor, kill a man. “I remember all of that,” he says softly. “That’s a painful thing to talk about.” The incident started as an argument about who was next in line. Tyrone and another father, exhausted from an hour-and-a-quarter wait and worried about their children and pregnant wives, lashed out. As the other man tried to choke him, Tyrone grabbed a nail file and stabbed him several times. Charged with manslaughter, he was sent to prison for 11 months in a notorious case called the “Santa Line killing.”

It wasn’t the last time that a quick judgment would change Howard’s life. Although acting has been a passion since he was young, science was Howard’s second love, and he studied for a master’s in chemical engineering at Pratt Institute, in New York City. His plans changed dramatically when his college girlfriend, Lori, became pregnant, and he dropped out of school to support their new family.

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By age 24, he was a married man, and soon he was a dad three times. Trying to fill the emptiness of a marriage that was forged more out of duty than devotion, he says, he buried himself in encounters with other women, in booze, and more. “I created a false person,” he says. “You feel either superhuman or subhuman—either perfect or completely evil and raunchy. Finally, that person that really is you is snuffed out, and you get into a vicious cycle—be it drinking or drugs or sex.”

His father was supportive but also a taskmaster. “I remember him getting up at 5 o’clock in the morning, doing everything that he possibly could to make a dollar, and coming back home at 11 o’clock at night. He didn’t let you go to sleep without finishing your work. I remember washing the walls at 2:45 a.m. on a school night. He would wake us up if we hadn’t finished our chores, and we got whupped for it.”

Yes, whupped. Howard freely admits that he, too, takes a firm hand with his own children, two girls and a middle boy, ages 8, 10, and 12. “You have been told you can’t discipline your kids no more,” he declares. “When I grew up, there was a paddle in every classroom.”

Despite his thoughts on spakings or whoopings, Howard says the most important lesson his parents taught him wasn’t discipline but self-respect. When he was 6 years old, he says, “my daddy put me in front of the mirror and said, ‘You see that little guy coming at you right there? You gotta love him, because no matter what, he’s the only person who is going to be there with you for the rest of your life. Your wife might leave you, your kids can grow up and not talk to you, and your friends can take the things that you love. But that little cat right there is going to be with you every step of the way. Don’t let him down, and he’ll never let you down.’ My favorite thing in the world is my own reflection, because there I gain my strength. You can’t lie to that.”

“When people ask me, ‘Don’t you think you might be burning your candle at both ends?’” says Howard. “I say, ‘Well, it’s okay. I know how to make candles.’”

As he builds his Empire each week on Fox’s hit show, he also builds his empire each day within.

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