Viola Davis is riding high with the critical and ratings success of How To Get Away with Murder. She just won the SAG Award and HTGAWM is a ratings bonanza. But Viola still keeps it real. When she won the SAG, her speech was the best, because she referenced that “not so classically beautiful” NYT article, plus she spoke out for diversity everywhere. Viola was on The Ellen Show yesterday, talking about how scared she was to win the SAG because apparently her feet were lubed up with Crisco. She had a bunion! What other actress would not only confess to having a bunion, but confess to putting Crisco on said bunion?! Viola also gave a lengthy interview to Essence recently – go here to read. Some highlights:
How she’s able to play such a messy character on HTGAWM: “I did all my work beforehand and I think that served me well. My craft served me well. Then I just step into it. I always have a quiet time right beforehand. Some scenes are only about passing a bottle. They’re not all sexy or dark. I just feel very dedicated to her mess. I’m holding onto the mess and the reason I’m holding onto the mess is because I just feel in TV, that the characters that sometimes people connect to, are characters that even if they are complicated, we want to overly simplify them because we want to like them. We want to be like them. We want them to be the fantasy. And I think in essence, people are complicated and I don’t think you know who they are until they’re faced with a situation.”
Deciding to make the character “real”: “Like I told them, ‘I want to take my wig off.’ Because I’m not going to lie in the bed with full makeup and hair as a sexy character because what it’s going to force me to do as an actor, if I have to do that, is it’s going to force me to do really bad acting. I’m going to go – it’s like watching a Barbie episode – how can I pretend to be Barbie? Because that’s the only way to play sexy. That’s just not it. That’s not human. Human is, “I have to take this hair off at night.” African-American women, we wear a lot of wigs. We take our makeup off. We don’t walk great in shoes. We’re not necessarily likeable or always a size two. Some of us have deep voices and then you’re just going to have to deal with it. And you don’t always know who people are. You can’t get ahead of them.
Being able to play a sexual character: “It feels awesome. It really does. I love it. I went to Julliard in New York and I always tried to be the 90-pound White girl. Only because we did a lot of classical training and all of the ingénues in Shakespeare were very small women. So I tried to make myself small. Literally. I don’t know how I did that. I was like thinking, “Small. Light.” I would try to have a higher voice, which sounds ridiculous right? But I felt like there’s only one way to be sexy. It’s almost like I felt like I had to disappear. But it feels really good to embrace exactly who I am and be my sexy or be my sexualized. To be my woman, you know? And it’s been the joy of my life. It really has and I think it found me at the right time of my life. When I really am very unapologetic for who I am. That helps other women, too. I think women want to see themselves on TV. I really do. I think we’re in the 21st century, I think we have to woman up. I think a lot of women have womaned up and we want to see ourselves and it feels great.”
Her SAG speech: “Part of it was off of the cuff but part of it I have to say I thought about it. I did think about some of it because I just wanted to show that with actors, everything starts with the material. You can’t shine if you have two lines in the background as a bus driver. You can only shine if you’re included in the narrative and narratives start when you put pen to paper and you use your imagination. You just tell a story. That’s all you do. You tell a story. You don’t put any boundaries on it. It’s infinite and that’s the only way we can do what we do is that people use their imaginations so that we can be included in it.”
I always say this about Viola, and I’ll say it again: SHE IS REAL. She seems like a real woman, living in the real world, with real disappointments and tragedies and hopes and dreams. She doesn’t put on airs, she doesn’t lie and tell people what they want to hear. Everything about her is so refreshing. And cool. And “I always tried to be the 90-pound White girl” – God, I feel her on that. How much time did I waste trying to be that?
Photos courtesy of WENN.
I love her. She’s so talented and really does seem to be real, like you say. I wish her all the best and I hope her career is long. I love watching her in HTGAWM because the role is so different from The Help. Thumbs up for breaking out and not allowing herself to be type cast or pigeonholed.
You said it Katie!!
I just wanna know how she gets her skin to glow like that
Happiness.
Love that answer!!!
Love her so much! Reading the Iggy story and contrasting her silliness with Viola’s strength, lack of artifice, and intelligence is interesting. We need more Violas speaking up so our girls can hear those good messages.
She’s always been a favorite of mine. And I think she speaks to all women about the broader pressure on women to look like a particular type of woman – whatever happens to be in vogue at the moment. In my 50 years, I’ve seen the definition of the “ideal” woman change dozens of times. And she is right – eventually you get to the age (or maturity level) where you simply accept who and what you are on the outside and just “be” the person you are on the inside. That is what’s truly sexy.
HTGAWM is a bit daft for me but I watch it just for Viola.
Rita, see Viola (the Queen)
Yeah, this did make me think of Rita Ora’s interview. It’s not that I don’t think there’s some truth to what she said- a lot of women and girls struggle with insecurities about looks and want to be closer to whatever the ‘ideal beauty’ happens to be. But that doesn’t mean that there are no women who have come to be comfortable in their own skin.
Prejudice issues aside, her training clearly left her with a lot of self loathing.
Training to be a small shakespearean ingenue when you aren’t that, and being left off the student cast lists for those type of roles has got to do such a number to you, and that’s before you go out into the world to try to make your mark as a professional actress.
It’s written in every interview and speech she gives.
But don’t you think that she accepts herself now? I think she had to deal with so much, as you point out, but I think she came to a place where she loves and accepts herself for who she is, and is all the more beautiful for it, inside and out.
I love her, she’s so beautiful and radiates confidence and happiness.
Good that she found her comfortable place. She looks beautiful there, love her skin tone, like Lupita.
I love her to death, but I think her show is awful and she tends to be very over the top in it.
@SpookySpooks – I agree with you. I’m really really happy for her that she got this role and is being feted for it. The show itself though – not that good.
This. I love Viola, so good for her if the show is succesful in ratings. But it’s just too Shonda’y for my liking. Way too melodramatic and campy, not to mention laughably inaccurate in law terms.
That’s how I feel about it too. I think she deserves better work, but if she’s happy in this one, I’m happy for her. And I like that the show is so high profile and she’s getting to speak on a larger scale -the confidence she now has in herself and the subjects she chooses to speak about are important and good for everyone to hear.
Love Viola so much! And while the show is over the top, I still watch it!
Love her! Smart, beautiful, strong and talented. What an amazing role model to all of us.
sad -most of us waste our time (or have at some point) trying to be the 90 pound white girl. such a shame, since the 90 lb white girl is also left to feel lacking as well. we are always judged and are told it is never enough.
women are still inundated with the message that to be everything, a woman has to be x, y and z. which usually means deferring to what men want (or are told/taught to want).
glad she has something to say and an audience that listens.
“..such a shame, since the 90 lb white girl is also left to feel lacking as well. we are always judged and are told it is never enough…women are still inundated with the message that to be everything, a woman has to be x, y and z. which usually means deferring to what men want (or are told/taught to want)…”
So true. I think that’s part of the reason why you see young women or skinny women in Hollywood getting breast implants and butt implants. Not saying that the pressures and insecurities that the skinny white girl feels are the same as the ones placed on everyone else. Being a skinny white girl in the entertainment industry definitely gives someone privilege. But women are made fun of and made to feel that they aren’t woman enough if they don’t have that hourglass figure with the ‘right’ boobs and the ‘right’ ass.
“I think women want to see themselves on TV.” THIS. This is precisely why I watch a lot more British television than American. The female leads in shows like “Scott & Bailey,” “Happy Valley” and “Broadchurch” are such amazing actors, and guess what? You can actually focus on the role they’re playing because they look so “normal” and you’re not spending the whole show mooning over their perfect highlights, perfect teeth, impossibly-toned figures, and glowing skin. They’re wrinkled, they’re average weight, and their boobs and bums don’t defy gravity. It’s so refreshing it makes me want to weep. (I do realize I just named three shows that don’t have any women of colour in them… British television obviously isn’t perfect, but these are shows I’ve enjoyed.)
I think that’s the case in most European countries. One of the reasons is, at least in my country, the only way into acting is going to the Academy of dramatic art. There are no model turned actors here. Also, there are more films in which the leads ( men and women) are in their 40s or older, rather than in their 20s.
Broadchurch S2 has a black female barrister as a main cast member – and she isn’t picture-perfect pretty. Her son is a minor character. Meera Syal also plays the judge as part of the supporting cast. Actually, I really like the way they’ve done this. These south/south west coastal towns are almost 100% white – I know; I live there! – and the show has clearly made efforts to be diverse in a credible way. So they’ve brought in characters from London – which would happen in the real world for an important legal case. That gave them the opportunity for some diversity and they took it.
I think the issue with American TV/movies is that every so often there will be a “regular” person cast but it’s always a man. Theoretically speaking, a Phillip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, etc. shouldn’t have ever been able to have a career, considering that women are expected to look like Halle, Salma, or Angelina to make it. Or there’s the big fat and/or balding old dude with the trim, hot wife but it’s never the reverse scenario. I admit it’s always startling to me to see a regular Joe/Jane on my screen in British TV because all I can think is “wow, that person would NEVER be able to play the love interest/hot girl here!”
“To be my woman, you know? And it’s been the joy of my life”. ..We have to woman up”…YES!!!!!!! I don’t have a daughter, but I do have an 18 yr.old niece, who I will send these quotes to-this is what ALL women need to hear. And believe. She’s right-when you learn this things are so much better. Love you, Viola.
Slow clap for Viola. Beautiful words from a truly beautiful woman!
She is awesome!
Love her, love her, love her!
I love her!