Viola Davis on being a Black woman in Hollywood

Brut America

“There is value to anger.”   Viola Davis reflected on her experience being a Black woman in Hollywood during a talk at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival …   #Cannes2022

Transcript

00:00My anger, that six, eight-year-old Viola,

00:05is because I was running from a world that was spitting me out,

00:09that's what I felt,

00:12with the boys, and really a culture calling me that ugly black n***a.

00:18That what it motivated me to do is, yes, get out of my life,

00:22but what it also motivated me to do in my anger

00:26is to create a life that didn't spit any more Violas out.

00:42I don't care what anyone says, when you leave this life,

00:45you want everyone to know that you took up space in it.

00:49So how do you do that, despite the fact that,

00:53listen, at the end of the day, I grew up in a predominantly white community,

00:59I didn't feel adored, I didn't feel pretty,

01:02but despite all of those feelings, I still kept moving.

01:08I keep, you know, sprouting the quote from Anne Lamont,

01:13which is, all courage is, is fear said with prayers.

01:18That I'm very good with understanding that I have fear,

01:24understanding that I have anxiety, understanding that I have self-doubt,

01:28but it doesn't keep my feet and my spirit from moving forward.

01:34Any rejection that I've had, where people said that I was not pretty enough for a role,

01:40really gets on my damn nerves.

01:43It breaks my heart and it makes me angry.

01:51For many reasons.

01:54A lot of it is based in race. It really is.

01:59Because let's be honest, if I had my same features and I were five shades lighter,

02:05it would just be a little bit different.

02:09And if I had blonde hair, blue eyes, and even a wide nose,

02:13it would be even a little bit different than what it is now.

02:16We could talk about colorism, we could talk about race, it pisses me off.

02:20And it's broken my heart.

02:23I got the help. I got the Oscar nomination for the help.

02:29And then it was over, and then I thought, and now what?

02:33I was getting the same types of roles.

02:36Because how else are they going to cast a dark-skinned, black woman

02:41who is really not a model?

02:44So you're going to get three days here, two days there, two days there,

02:48and I had hit my bottom.

02:51And so I knew that then the only sort of position I could move into

02:57that gave me some sense of worth, and the only way to reconcile that anger

03:04was to find roles myself.

03:07That was my response to that.

03:10It was sort of a, excuse my language, a f*** it.

03:14And there is value to anger.

03:20There is value to a well-placed f*** it.

03:24Because with that burst, I feel like that burst represents

03:30that one moment of change.

03:33That after that, you can never be the same.

03:35You cannot be complacent afterwards.

03:38You've got to do something about the anger,

03:40because you don't want to go back there again.

03:43Why aren't you hiring a dark-skinned woman?

03:45When she walks in the room and you say she blows you away,

03:48then create space and storytelling for her.

03:52So when she thrives, she's not thriving despite of her circumstances.

03:57She's thriving because of the circumstances.

04:01Because in terms of storytelling that's expansive,

04:05that is as expansive as one's imagination, that's not happening yet.

04:10There's just certain genres and certain storytelling

04:13that when you're in a room as a producer,

04:16you have to really fight for those stories.

04:20Like if I wanted to play a mother whose son relived in a challenging neighborhood,

04:27and he was a gang member who died in a drive-by shooting,

04:31I could get that made.

04:34If I play the woman who was, I don't know,

04:37looking to recreate herself by, I don't know,

04:40flying to Nice and sleeping with five men at the age of 56 looking like me,

04:46I'm going to have a hard time pushing that one.

04:48Even as Viola Davis.

04:50Because people can't reconcile the blackness with spiritual awakening.

04:56And sexuality, it's too much.

05:01It's too much when you look like my maid Louise.

05:05And I say that because I actually had a director who did that to me.

05:09Who said, Louise!

05:11And I've known him for like 10 years and he called me Louise

05:14and I found out it was because his maid's name is Louise.

05:19So that has not changed.

05:21You have to understand when people give you affirmations growing up

05:25saying you can be anything, you can do whatever,

05:28you know you're beautiful, right?

05:30Oh, who told you you weren't beautiful?

05:32And then you don't see any examples of people who look like you

05:35who people are saying who are beautiful.

05:38You don't see that.

05:39That's a big thing with dark-skinned women.

05:41People like, don't listen to that.

05:44Do not listen to that, Viola.

05:46Dark-skinned women are beautiful too.

05:48And then you don't see any.

05:51There's no vision.

05:55Then you walk in the room and people don't really know that they're doing that

05:59because, you know, I'm sort of famous so people see me.

06:02But when people don't know who I am,

06:06it's interesting how invisible you get.

06:12You feel seen.

06:15You know, and that's why even with young black girls

06:19I'm really, really, really cognizant of this.

06:23Of always telling them that they're worth it and beautiful.

06:27First of all, because that's what I see.

06:29And that's what I know, that I know, that I know

06:32is the birthplace of everything.

06:35It's a birthplace of survival.

06:37It's a birthplace of self-love.

06:39It's a birthplace of keeping breath in your friggin' lungs.

06:43Even if you do mess up. I don't care.

06:45You're still worth it.

06:47You don't have to barter for it.

06:49You don't have to do anything for it.

06:51You don't have to be a certain weight.

06:53You don't have to do nothing. You're worth it.

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