Viola Davis says her 'entire life has been a protest'

Viola Davis is used to protesting. In fact, in a new in-depth interview with Vanity Fair, she says that her life, and career, has been a case of succeeding despite the odds being stacked against her and she isn't about to slow down.“I feel like my entire life has been a protest,” Davis reveals in the historic July/August issue, the first time a Black photographer, Dario Calmese, has shot the cover in the magazine’s history. “My production company is my protest. Me not wearing a wig at the Oscars in 2012 was my protest. It is a part of my voice, just like introducing myself to you and saying, ‘Hello, my name is Viola Davis.’”In the interview Davis, who turns 55 next month, opens up about everything from growing up in extreme poverty, to how she ultimately found her voice, wanting to participate in the Black Lives Matter protests following George Floyd’s killing, to systemic racism in Hollywood and how the #MeToo movement has affected Black women.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Presenting our July/August cover star: @ViolaDavis. Last month, the Oscar winner took to the streets to protest the death of George Floyd—but she’s no stranger to fighting for what’s right. As a Black woman in Hollywood, she’s spent her career doing it: “My entire life has been a protest,” Davis says. “My production company is my protest. Me not wearing a wig at the Oscars in 2012 was my protest. It is a part of my voice, just like introducing myself to you and saying, ‘Hello, my name is Viola Davis.’” Davis was photographed by @dario.studio—the first Black photographer to shoot a Vanity Fair cover. At the link in bio, Davis speaks with V.F. about her extraordinary journey out of poverty and into the stubbornly unequal Hollywood system. Story by @soniasaraiya Photographed by @dario.studio Styled by @elizabethstewart1 Coatdress @maxmara Earrings @pomellato

A post shared by Vanity Fair (@vanityfair) on Jul 14, 2020 at 4:02am PDT

On finding her worth

Growing up, Davis wet the bed until she was 14 years old, had an alcoholic and sometimes abusive father and would often go to school smelling like urine. She reveals that it took her a long time to feel like she held any worth in the world. “I did not exert my voice because I did not feel worthy of having a voice,” she said. Eventually what lifted her out of what she calls “the hole” were her three sisters and her mother.“[They] looked at me and said I was pretty,” she adds. “Who’s telling a dark-skinned girl that she’s pretty? Nobody says it. I’m telling you, nobody says it. The dark-skinned Black woman’s voice is so steeped in slavery and our history. If we did speak up, it would cost us our lives. Somewhere in my cellular memory was still that feeling—that I do not have the right to speak up about how I’m being treated, that somehow I deserve it… I did not find my worth on my own.”[video_embed id='1342349']RELATED: Viola Davis on her inspirations and support system[/video_embed]

On finding roles as a Black woman

These days, many casual observers probably feel like Davis—the first Black woman to ever win an Emmy for lead actress in a drama for Shonda Rhimes' How to Get Away With Murder—could nab any role she wanted. After all, she is playing blues legend Ma Rainey in the upcoming film Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, plus she’s becoming Michelle Obama in the upcoming Showtime series First Ladies, on which she’s also a producer. But the career she's built has been a long time coming. Throughout the interview, Davis opens up about a few of her choice roles, including her run on HTGAWM, which ended after six seasons last May. At one point she tells interviewer Sonia Saraiya that many people have asked her why she would take a network TV role after establishing a film career. “I always ask them, What movies? What were those movies?” she says. “Listen, I got Widows but if I just relied on the Hollywood pipeline…. No, there are not those roles.”Before Murder, Davis had made a name for herself on Broadway and she had a seven-minute role alongside Meryl Streep on Doubt that earned her an Oscar nod, but her career hadn’t exactly hit that next level. Now she’s there (with an Oscar win for her role on Fences to boot), but she says she fears for younger actresses of colour who are fighting for those same breaks. “There’s not enough opportunities out there to bring that unknown, faceless Black actress to the ranks of the known."Davis also reveals that part of the reason she took the part of Aibileen in the acclaimed but problematic 2011 film The Help, which has been criticized for its reductive view of race relations and centering of the white narrative, was because she was hoping the role would help her to transition to bigger gigs. “Not a lot of narratives are also invested in our humanity. They’re invested in the idea of what it means to be Black, but… it’s catering to the white audience. The white audience at the most can sit and get an academic lesson into how we are. Then they leave the movie theater and they talk about what it meant. They’re not moved by who we were,” she said. “There’s no one who’s not entertained by The Help. But there’s a part of me that feels like I betrayed myself, and my people, because I was in a movie that wasn’t ready to [tell the whole truth].”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

In 2015, @violadavis became the first Black woman ever to win an Emmy for lead actress in a drama for ‘How to Get Away With Murder.’ In 2017, she won an Oscar for her supporting role as Rose Maxson in ‘Fences’—a part for which she also collected a Tony. Today, she is using her own production company to give young Black actors a platform—in every stage of their careers. “There’s not enough opportunities out there to bring that unknown, faceless Black actress to the ranks of the known. To pop her!” Davis tells V.F., naming other performers—Emma Stone, Reese Witherspoon, Kristen Stewart—all “fabulous white actresses,” who have had “a wonderful role for each stage of their lives, that brought them to the stage they are now. We can’t say that for many actors of color.” Read our July/August cover story at the link in bio. Story by @soniasaraiya Photographed by @dario.studio Styled by @elizabethstewart1 Gown: @giorgioarmani Earrings: @mounserstudio Cuff: @gilesandbrother

A post shared by Vanity Fair (@vanityfair) on Jul 14, 2020 at 5:05am PDT

On the #MeToo movement

Hollywood has been experiencing its own movement following the Harvey Weinstein conviction and other prominent stories of sexual harassment that have come to light in recent years, with slow changes beginning to take effect. Davis feels that for Black women, it has been especially hard to stand up to on harassment or have candid talks about money because of long-established stereotypes.“We know as women, when you speak up, you’re labeled a bitch—immediately. Unruly—immediately. Just as a woman. As a woman of colour, there is very, very, very little you have to do. All you have to do is maybe roll your eyes, and that’s it,” she says. “Negro, you do as I say, when I tell you to do it.”  She added later: “If there is a place that is a metaphor for just fitting in and squelching your own authentic voice, Hollywood would be the place.”[video_embed id='5662248793001']BEFORE YOU GO: Octavia Spencer on working with Guillermo del Toro for ‘The Shape of Water’[/video_embed]As for the call for pay equity in the business following high-profile stories of A-listers like Ellen Pompeo on Grey’s Anatomy or Robin Wright on House of Cards speaking out about making less than their male co-stars? Davis explains that non-parity is even more fraught for Black creatives. “But how I saw it was you’re making $420,000 per episode?! Me, Taraji P. Henson, Kerry Washington, Issa Rae, Gabrielle Union—we’re number one on the call sheet!”

On participating in Black Lives Matter protests

When protesters began taking the streets following George Floyd’s killing, Davis reveals that she wanted more than anything to get out there and protest with them. “She called me and said she was going,” Octavia Spencer said in the article. “I immediately talked her out of that.” The concern? Putting themselves and their loved ones at risk during the coronavirus pandemic, especially considering the systemic health care inequality when it comes to POC. “Both of us cried,” Spencer revealed. “This WAS our civil rights movement, and we were sidelined because of health issues. We felt isolated from the movement.”So after careful consideration, the women staged a neighbourhood demonstration instead and camped out while wearing masks. No one recognized them, someone across the street brought them pizza, and Davis held a sign that said “AHMAUD ARBERY.” According to Davis, they definitely got some attention, including a few middle fingers.“We said we’d just be out there for a few minutes, and it ended up being hours, hours,” she says. “Almost like a big dam bursting open. We got a lot of beeps. We got a few fingers. But this was the first time the fingers did not bother me.”[video_embed id='1993445']BEFORE YOU GO: What We're Watching: Black lives in the spotlight[/video_embed]