Taraji P. Henson might have landed the role of Cookie Lyon in less than a minute, but in those few seconds she had some fierce competition...from James Corden.
The Late Late Show host first lauded her performance on Empire Tuesday and said that he "couldn't imagine" anybody else for the part, but then he informed viewers that she didn't get the job so easily and showed the audience her audition tape for the part.
As Henson waited to be called into her tryout, Corden walked in dressed in his best fur coat, wig and pearls. Corden's "Cookie" sat down next to Henson, who was nothing but cordial to the late-night talk show host, but the tide soon turned.
"You're messing with the wrong bitch you bougie trick," Corden muttered under his breath. Intimidation tactics began from the start.
With a couple of minutes to spare before his audition, Corden's "Cookie" decided to run through the lines just one more time, much to Henson's chagrin.
"Lucious, you get me back my company, bitch!" Corden screamed in the waiting room.
Unable to handle his screaming, Henson politely requested that he lower his voice, which only upset him. "Coming in here half-ass with your dollar-store jeans, your discount hoops, fake ass shoes, cheap Chanel belt," said Corden.
"That is not in the script!" Henson responded.
"No, it's not in the script," he affirmed. "It's real life, bitch, and we is livin' it."
That was all Henson needed to hear before she entered full-blown Cookie mode.
"The day you take a job from Taraji P. Henson is the day I drag you through the streets by the roots of your nasty weave," she told Corden. "I was in Hustle and Flow, OK, Boo Boo Kitty? It's hard out here for an actress. I raised Benjamin Button, bitch. Where is your Oscar nomination?"
Roasted! Corden's "Cookie" definitely didn't know what he was getting himself into when he started giving Henson a hard time. Unfortunately, she kept going.
"You think anyone saw you in Into the Woods? All anybody ever saw was Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp and the trees. Were you a tree? Was that you?"
Poor Corden! But thankfully it turned around for him when someone else showed up to surprise the stars. Watch to find out how it all ended!