Person of Interest is an American television crime drama broadcasting on CBS. It is based on a screenplay developed by J. J. Abrams and Jonathan Nolan. The series revolves around a former CIA agent (Jim Caviezel) recruited by a mysterious billionaire (Michael Emerson) to prevent violent crimes in New York City. On March 14, 2012, CBS announced that the series had been renewed for a second season.

"You are being watched. The government has a secret system: a machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it. I designed the machine to detect acts of terror, but it sees everything. Violent crimes involving ordinary people, people like you. Crimes the government considered irrelevant. They wouldn't act, so I decided I would. But I needed a partner, someone with the skills to intervene. Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. You'll never find us, but victim or perpetrator, if your number's up...we'll find you."

"Person of interest" is a phrase used by law enforcement when announcing the name of someone involved in a criminal investigation who has not been arrested or formally accused of a crime. The phrase was adopted by the media and widely disseminated, thus most law enforcement agencies have picked up the term. It has no legal meaning, but it is a "catchy" term. "Law enforcement officials say that the term simply reflects the new tactics required to fight terrorism. But some legal scholars say officials are trying to create a more benign public image, even as their power expands." While terms such as suspect, target, and material witness have clear and sometimes formal definitions, person of interest remains undefined by the U.S. Department of Justice. It is often used as a euphemism for suspect, and can sometimes result in a trial by media.

According to the New York Times,

It was used at least as early as the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing in reference to Richard A. Jewell. Its initial uses aroused controversy, but it has since seen increasingly regular use. Jewell later remarked on the use of the term:

A person is a being, such as a human, that has certain capacities or attributes constituting personhood, the precise definition of which is the subject of much controversy.^{[vague language]} The common plural of "person", "people", is often used to refer to an entire nation or ethnic group (as in "a people"), so the plural "persons" is often used in contexts which require precision such as philosophical and legal writing.

In ancient Rome, the word "persona" (Latin) or "prosopon" (πρόσωπον: Greek) originally referred to the masks worn by actors on stage. The various masks represented the various "personae" in the stage play, while the masks themselves helped the actor's voice resonate and made it easier for the audience to hear.

In Roman law, the word "persona" became used to refer to a role played in court, and it became established that it was the role rather than the actor that could have rights, powers, and duties, because different individuals could assume the same roles, the rights, powers, and duties followed the role rather than the actor, and each individual could act in more than one role, each a different "person" in law.^{[tortured english][citation needed]}

Taraji Penda Henson (born September 11, 1970) is an American actress and singer. She is best known for her roles as Yvette in Baby Boy (2001), Shug in Hustle and Flow (2005) and Queenie in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2009. In 2009, she appeared in Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself as April, an alcoholic singer. She currently co-stars in the CBS series Person of Interest.

Henson was born in Southeast Washington, D.C., the daughter of Bernice Gordon, a corporate manager at Woodward & Lothrop, and Boris Henson, a janitor and fabricator. She is a relative of Matthew Henson, discoverer of the Geographic North Pole. Her first and middle name are of Swahili origin, taraji meaning hope.

Henson spent summers at her grandparents' house in suburban Southern Maryland. She attended Oxon Hill High School in Oxon Hill, Maryland. She first attended NC A&T, where she started a major in Electrical Engineering. She later transferred to Howard University. She worked two jobs—in the morning as a secretary at the Pentagon and in the night as a singing and dancing waitress on a dinner cruise ship—The Spirit of Washington—to pay for Howard University.^{[citation needed]} She won the Triple Threat Award and graduated with a degree in Theater Arts.^{[citation needed]}

Michael Emerson (born September 7, 1954) is an American actor who is perhaps best known for his roles as Benjamin Linus on Lost and fictional serial killer William Hinks in The Practice. In 2011 he began starring in the CBS series Person of Interest as Harold Finch.

Emerson was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and grew up in the nearby town of Toledo, where he attended South Tama County High School. In 1976, after graduating from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where he studied theater and art, he moved to New York City. Unable to find acting work, he took retail jobs and worked as a freelance illustrator. In 1986, he moved with his first wife to Jacksonville, Florida. There, from 1986 to 1993, he appeared in local productions at Theater Jacksonville and The Players by the Sea and worked as a director and teacher at Flagler College.

Emerson considered forgoing a career in acting in favor of a more stable vocation in teaching^{[citation needed]}. He decided to instead further his studies with a Master of Fine Arts that might also introduce him to theatre professionals and directors in his chosen trade. In 1993, he enrolled in the Alabama Shakespeare Festival's University of Alabama-sponsored Master of Fine Arts/Professional Actor Training program; and, upon graduating in 1995, he returned to New York where he appeared in the annual Alabama Shakespeare Festival showcase.