The life of Viola Davis

Brut America

She grew up in poverty and worked her way up to becoming the first Black woman to have won an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony.   This is the story of Viola Davis.

Transcript

00:00I grew up in poverty, you know, I grew up in apartments that were condemned and rat-infested,

00:10and I just always sort of wanted to be somebody, and I just wanted to be good at something.

00:31Do you think of yourself as a leader now?

00:34Yes, I do, and I didn't before. I resisted it in myself because I happened to be a very shy person.

00:41Sometimes I could be very timid.

01:00Every time I look at the little girl, I always thought, oh, it's a cute outfit, but she was always hungry,

01:27she was always shy, she was always kind of in the background, but inside she had big dreams bursting.

01:57I want to be a great example for my daughter, I really do.

02:16I want to be a great example of passion, of hard work, of love, and always understanding.

02:27I want to be a great example for my daughter, I really do.

02:57Every member of our staff is represented by a person of color, by the LGBTQ community.

03:12Every single narrative that comes through our doors that we accept have people of color.

03:20Women are at the forefront of just about every project.

03:36It's important to me at this point in my maturity to just embrace who I am.

03:44I think that it's important at this point in my life to live an authentic life.

03:51I think that if you probably interviewed a lot of people who were towards the end of their lives,

03:57I think that that's what they would say, that they wish that they had lived their lives more authentically.

04:02And this is a part of it, wearing my hair.

04:14It's fabulous that she's mysterious, it's fabulous that she's messy, it's fabulous that she's sexy,

04:28it's fabulous that she's a mature woman over 40, because those are all adjectives that don't usually pertain to women of color.

04:37I feel great as a woman. I feel like I'm at a point where I'm owning my power.

04:47I'm owning my story, I'm owning my beauty, I'm owning my joy, I'm owning my hard work.

04:56I'm standing in front of people and I can say that I'm not the best of anything,

05:03but I deserve whatever I get because I've worked hard for it. So I feel wonderful.

05:20It is through human dedication and effort that we move forward.

05:28And then when we don't work, what happens is that time actually becomes an ally to the primitive forces of social stagnation.

05:43I just feel like the narratives that are created in Hollywood right now have got to become inclusive.

06:00They have got to reflect the changing world and the changing cultures.

06:13I feel like I'm at a point where I'm owning my power.

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