Viola Davis.Photo: Dominique Charriau/WireImage
Viola Davisis recalling an example of aracistmicroaggression she dealt with earlier in her Hollywood career.
“I had a director who did that to me … and I find out that it’s because [it’s] his maid’s name,” said Davis, 56. “I was maybe around 30 at the time, so it was a while ago. But what you have to realize is that those microaggressions happen all the time.”
The Woman Kingactress added that Black women tend to be confined to certain storylines, making it difficult to make different types of movies.
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Viola Davis inThe Help(2011).Dreamworks Pictures/Kobal/Shutterstock
TheHow to Get Away with Murderalum added of being turned down on projects, “A lot of it is based in race. It really is.”
“Let’s be honest. If I had my same features and I were five shades lighter, it would just be a little bit different. And if I had blonde hair, blue eyes and even a wide nose, it would be even a little bit different than what it is now,” she continued.
“We could talk about colorism. We could talk about race,” the actress said. “It pisses me off, and it has broken my heart — on a number of projects, which I won’t name.”
Davis previously opened up about beingregretful for playing the role of a maidnamed Aibileen in the fictional 2011 movieThe Help, for which she earned anOscarnomination for Best Actress.
“I just felt that at the end of the day that it wasn’t the voices of the maids that were heard,” Davis toldThe New York Timesin 2018. “I know Aibileen. I know Minny. They’re my grandma. They’re my mom. And I know that if you do a movie where the whole premise is, I want to know what it feels like to work for white people and to bring up children in 1963, I want to hear how youreallyfeel about it. I never heard that in the course of the movie.”
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Davis clarified that, though she now doesn’t like the way her character was portrayed, she’s still grateful for the bonds she made with her costars.
“But not in terms of the experience and the people involved because they were all great,” she said. “The friendships that I formed are ones that I’m going to have for the rest of my life. I had a great experience with these other actresses, who are extraordinary human beings. And I could not ask for a better collaborator than [writer-director] Tate Taylor.”
Last month,Davis spoke to PEOPLEabout her new memoirFinding Me, admitting that she had “an enormous existential crisis” before deciding to write the book.
“I always thought acting defined my life, and it doesn’t,” she said. “What people in the world tell you is that if you find that thing that you do, that you are great at, then that’s it. And you have money in the bank, and you have a house, and you have a cutehusband, and he loves youand your kid, that’s it. And it’s not.”
“I was still hiding a huge part of my story,” added Davis. “It’s almost like I reinvented all the things that I wanted to and tossed away the rest of it. You know when you look at pictures down memory lane, and you see it differently. I’m looking at little Viola, and I see how strong she was and how she was just a spitfire. I think that’s why I wrote the book, that if I somehow explored it, unpacked those memories, resolving them, that somehow I could find my peace.”
source: people.com
