Taraji Henson might just be the best actress this generation. The past few weeks clarified this for me. I watched her pull off three very different roles: Detective Carter on Person of Interest, Cookie Lyon on Empire, and Melinda Gayle on Acrimony.

Person of Interest ended a couple of years ago, and was a great show. It follows a billionaire and former CIA operative as they use a complex computer network to stop murders before they happen. Taraji plays a cop who initially opposes them, but then comes to work with them. She is an earnest woman who wants to follow the law to a T and struggles with bending the rules to help even a noble cause. She was so good that when she died in season 3, I almost stopped watching the show.

A woman dedicated to law and order? That would surprise those of you who watched her as Cookie Lyon or Melinda Gayle. On Empire, the Lyons aren’t above threatening, blackmailing, or killing to get ahead. She threatens her own husband that she’ll ruin an IPO by telling the SEC that drug money was used to start Empire (in fairness her husband Lucius probably deserved it). And in Acrimony, Gayle eventually tries to murder her ex-husband and his new wife. Somehow, she does a convincing job of making you think she’s a victim, as I noted in my review.

In my book, the mark of a good actor is the ability to convincingly play very different roles, and to portray complicated, nuanced characters that we can both relate to and critique. Taraji can be ruthless, rachet, cunning, wise, deceitful, stupid, brilliant, empathetic, and earnest. Sometimes she manages to do all those things with just one character as she repeatedly does on Empire.

She hasn’t always had the best scripts or writing to work with. But whatever she’s in, she invariably makes better.