'Empire' Emmy Panel: The 28 Best Moments

This week the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences took a break from its usual year-round activity of determining which actor(s) from Modern Family will receive Emmys (a complicated process that involves a 12-sided die and psychic goldfish) to do something truly important: Pay tribute to America’s Favorite Television Program, Empire. After a screening of the first half of Wednesday’s 2-part season finale (which… WOW), lucky attendees were treated to a live performance by cast members Jussie “Jamal” Smollett and Bryshere “Hakeem” Gray of “You Are Beautiful” and “No Apologies.”

Then, stars Taraji P. Henson, Terrence Howard, and the rest of the gang joined co-creators Lee Daniels and Danny Strong, producer Brian Grazer, and showrunner Ilene Chaiken onstage for a highly spirited Q&A. Frequently drowned out by rapturous cheers, the panel fielded questions with the celebratory spirit of a victory lap.

Here’s a roundup of the 28 best quotes and moments from the #EmpireEmmy panel. (It should come as no surprise that Henson consistently stole the show.)

1. “We all have Rolexes. No, really, Fox got us Rolexes.” — Strong on the spoils of success.

2. “I like going grocery shopping, so I can’t do that anymore because I’m trying to get some cereal and people are like [high-pitched voice] ‘Hakeem! I don’t like what you did to Cookie.’ And I’m just trying to get some food.” — Gray on his newfound fame.

3. “Taraji P. Henson.” — Howard on why Empire is a phenomenon.

4. “You know what it is? I think that networks underestimated the intelligence of everybody in this room. [Cheers from the audience.] And I think that Fox stepped up to the plate hard.” — Daniels on why Empire has connected with audiences.

5. “I’m ‘Cookie’ now. My dad must be turning in his grave as he did name me ‘Taraji,’ but now people want to call me ‘Cookie.’” — Henson on her new fans.

6. “I am hip hop.” — Strong, facetiously, on why he wanted to make Empire. (To which Henson replied, “Danny Strong is the reason why hip-hop is alive today!”)

7. “Boomerang… When you’re directing something you steal from other peoples’ work — I do — and so, going back to Boomerang… Boomerang, Boomerang, Boomerang! And this man here produced Boomerang!” — Daniels on working with Grazer and the unexpected influence of Grazer’s 1992 Eddie Murphy film on Empire.

8. “I’m very interested in [the hip-hop] world, beginning with meeting O.D.B. and wondering, ‘Who calls himself Ol’ Dirty Bastard? I have to meet this O.D.B.’” — Grazer on his hip-hop curiosity.

9. Daniels: “[Taraji and I] had Skyped and Taraji had not gotten the job yet — I was talking to another actor—”

Henson: “I heard that you—”

Daniels: “I’m keepin’ it quiet! [Laughs.] And so she says, ‘If I’m gonna do this, I want to do it with Terrence Howard.’ And I was like, ‘You ain’t got the job yet, to be telling me that!’ And I closed the window and turned to Danny and said, ‘Danny, I think we have our Cookie.’”

10. Henson: “When I heard I needed to go in and ‘chemistry read’ with Terrence, I was like, ‘Well, what the hell else do you need to see us do?’”

Howard: “Taraji’s idea of a chemistry read is to slap the s—t out of you.”

11. “Lee Daniels, you destroyed my top-knot. Thirty inches of hair, bitch!” — Henson fussing with her hair extensions.

12. “OK, so this is why we work: Terrence and I have known each other for, what, ten years?… I know all his… Can I say this? I’ve been through every relationship with him, I know them all. I know all the babies, all the children, we hang out with our kids together, we stay in touch during projects. This is like really my friend in life.” — Henson on her longtime friendship with Howard.

“Our friendship comes from just being brutally honest. She was brutally honest from the first time I tried to sleep with her to… [crowd goes wild] She just keeps a brother on his toes.” — Howard on his friendship with Henson. (Henson: “Next question, please!”)

13. “I’m happy that I’m on this show because I’m white and I probably wouldn’t be able to get an audition next [pilot season].” — Kaitlin Doubleday (Rhonda) on how the next TV season will be full of Empire clones. (Henson: “She could slip through the cracks!”)

14. “Martin Luther King, we made it to the mountaintop!” — Henson, semi-facetiously, about Empire transcending race barriers.

15. “What’s happened is that — homophobia is deep in the African-American community. This is something that needs to be addressed. African-American women are dying of AIDS. It’s no longer a gay disease. This is a black women’s disease. Black women are dying because of the D.L. And it’s time to kick that door open.” — Daniels on the importance of Jamal’s coming-out storyline.

16. “I get letters all the time from kids, both homosexual and heterosexual, that say that somehow Jamal made them understand themselves what people around them really want. Just the idea that his story is actually pretty universal regardless of sexuality, race, culture, religion. None of us in this room or in this world have at least one time in our lives felt like we did not belong. Jamal is a blessing to be able to play. Like, I wake up every single morning and I thank God, and then I thank Lee Daniels. It’s changed so many peoples’ lives, but it’s also changed mine.” — Smollett on playing Jamal Lyon.

17. “Yes, I can sing.” — Trai Byers (Andre), just before Henson urged him to take centerstage and serenade the audience. (His voice is lovely.)

18. “I can personally say, I’ve been around a long time, and I’ve never been on a television set [like this one]. I really hate TV, I’m just gonna say it. I don’t like it, because I’ve always felt trapped in a little box, literally speaking. ‘You gotta stick to these words right here.’ But it’s like, ‘If I say it like this, the audience might connect better.’ [affects nasally voice] ‘No, you gotta say it like this.’ So finally I get to this incredible project and [impersonating Strong] ‘Say it again! Keep it all! Do it again! What else you got!’” — Henson on being encouraged to riff on Empire.

19. “There’s a lot of bad words in hip-hop, but we can’t use those words on the show. So I think that the actors bringing their own authenticity to the dialogue… Some of those tweaks are genius. Like ‘Boo Boo Kitty.’” — Strong on Henson’s instant-classic, improvised put-down. (Henson, responding in Urkel voice: “Did I do that?”)

20. “A look can say the f-bomb way stronger than using the f-bomb.” — Daniels, on his actors’ general fierceness.

Related: ‘Empire’ Recap: Cookie vs. the Scarybird

21. “I gotta play shuffleboard at the VA hospital. I wanna be over there.” — Howard, apropos of nothing.

22. “The bib moment is my favorite moment.” — Daniels on the infamous blowjob scene.

23. “That’s the sickness of Lee Daniels, though. He enjoys putting things in [the script] that are groundbreaking and all that type of stuff, and then he laughs knowing that we will have to do it.” — Smollett on Daniels’s fondness for weird moments.

24. “Stay on it, stay focused. Don’t get distracted. Stay on that mission, keep your blinders on. Know what you want in life.” — Gray’s advice for making it in entertainment.

25. “[Cookie] went away for 17 years, so she needs to be 17 years behind the curve in her fashion, so sometimes she puts on a little too much animal prints… Me, I know what looks right on my body, I understand who this woman is, I understand the time warp that she walked out of. So, [the wardrobe department] does all the shopping, they bring a rack of stuff to me and I go ‘this, this, this, or this.’ And then I try it on and whatever fits and looks right, that’s what I pick. And then they’ll put the jewelry in my room and usually I just try to put it ALL on, because Cookie would.” — Henson on how she helps design Cookie’s looks.

26. “Pythagoras said that a rock is nothing but frozen music, so music. Music.” — Howard on whether his first love is music or acting.

27. “I want Mariah, I want Janet Jackson, I want Kanye West.” — Smollett on his Season 2 guest star wish list.

28. Daniels: “I’d like to see us go back into the ghetto. We deal with the opulence of being rich, but how are the streets thumping right now?”

Henson: “I have a question. I read somewhere you were courting Oprah [for Season 2]. But then you want less opulence. Can you explain?”

Daniels: “She will be playing herself.”

Henson: “Do you see less opulence from Miss Oprah or Cookie?”

Daniels: “In the scene I was thinking about she would roll you around on the floor and take your wig off.”

Henson: [Offended] "Who wears a wig?”

Empire’s 2-hour season finale airs Wednesday, March 18 at 8 p.m. on Fox.