Viola Davis reflects on "The Woman King"

Brut America

"Tap into your warrior spirit."   In "The Woman King," she plays a general leading an all-female warrior unit in West Africa. Viola Davis explains why it's a metaphor for taking her power back in Hollywood ...

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00:00As black women we are worthy of opening a movie, of being global, of people filling up theaters,

00:08that we literally can make money at the box office,

00:12we can be at the center of the narrative, and that we are profoundly beautiful.

00:30Some things are worth fighting for.

00:34The title in the movie alone is sort of a great metaphor for this point in my life, in my career.

00:41This film is about my agency and my autonomy as an artist and as a black woman,

00:47a dark-skinned black woman in Hollywood.

00:50Have I had some roles in the past that have been terrific roles?

00:55Yes, there have been terrific roles, but more often than not,

00:59I have not had autonomy.

01:01I have had so many roles where I've had to fill in the gap.

01:04I've had to do the work to humanize them.

01:07They were definitely characters on the periphery, not explored at all.

01:13This is a fully realized, the whole story is absolutely fully realized,

01:19in terms of their humanity, in terms of what they did,

01:22in terms of it being an action historical drama,

01:25in terms of the fact that my production company with my husband, Julius Tenen,

01:30produced the film.

01:31We fought for it.

01:32You know, the fight has been real.

01:34That's the difference.

01:35The difference is ownership.

01:37I want people to tap into their warrior spirit,

01:41because I'm telling you one thing that I've learned on the road, just as a human being,

01:45is that life is a fight.

01:48Life is a beautiful struggle.

01:49It's a fight.

01:50But if you are trying to achieve comfort,

01:55then we are not moving the narrative forward for us at all.

02:02And so, this is for the risk takers.

02:05This is for the people who want to be risk takers,

02:09and are afraid to be risk takers.

02:11I hope it really emboldens them.

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