Danny Strong says the ALS-stricken mogul is loosely based on a real life iconic superstar
Empire has taken your television set, and subsequently the nation, by storm. It’s volatile and beloved characters, which include heartthrobs Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson, all have individual fan bases of their own, and between Cookie‘s antics and Empire Records CEO Lucious Lyon‘s affinity for letting his former lover have her way, there are enough storylines on the Wednesday night show to keep even people with no interest in Hip-Hop and its business fixated.
In an interview with Sway–who, ironically, appeared in last week’s episode–the show’s creator, Danny Strong, admitted that Lucious Lyon’s character is loosely based on Jay Z.
The Jay-Z story, which very much inspired Lucious Lyon, certain elements of Lucious Lyon, was that story. For me the story of people who have some sort of criminal past, or gangster past are not limited to black culture. Our goal is to tell a great story, and to do the best show we can. You can cross the line and just be totally inappropriate, but we’re not doing that.
If Lucious is loosely based on Hov, let’s have a little fun guessing who in Jay Z’s life Cookie could possibly be. Oh, the possibilities.
