Emmys: 'Empire' Co-Creator Danny Strong on Cookie's Catfight and Jamal's Coming-Out Party
The first season of Fox’s blockbuster hit Empire was filled with memorable, did-that-just-happen?! moments. But if we had to single out just one for the time capsule, our hands-down-claws-out choice would be the Cookie/Camilla showdown during Episode 8, “The Lyon’s Roar.” It sounds like series co-creator and executive producer Danny Strong would agree: “That was one of those scenes we were always really excited about,” Strong tells Yahoo TV in this new video. “The whole idea that Taraji P. Henson and Naomi Campbell were going to be facing off was something we were all really looking forward to.” And Strong credits his leading lady, Henson, with giving the encounter’s most famous line — “What can you do, Yoko? Can you play the tambourine?” — extra zing. “It was a thousand times funnier than I possibly could have imagined,” says Strong.
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That same episode has another moment that Strong is particularly proud of: Jamal’s coming-out moment in mid-song, while his father Lucious (Terrence Howard) looks on. To emphasize the way Jamal (Jussie Smollett) is moving forward with his life while his dad is stuck in the past, he decided to cut between flashbacks and the present day. “It ended up being this really great metaphorical moment,” Strong explains. “The scene worked on all these different levels and it ended up being the moment that we were all hoping it would be when we conceived of it.”
Empire returns on Sept. 23 on Fox.
