Girl on Guy with Aisha Tyler - girl on guy 215: viola davis

Episode Date: May 27, 2016

episode 215 of girl on guy is with the extraordinary viola davis. that is all.

This is Girl on Guy. Hey, everybody, welcome to Girl on Guy 215. Welcome to the show. I know these episodes are coming much fewer and farther between and that you, honestly, as well as me, have probably been waiting eagerly for this episode. So it's finally here and thank you for your patience. As you know, I am going through an extraordinary and probably unbelievably rare, period of incredible busyness, I don't know, output, effort,

workaholism, where I'm doing multiple things at once and right now I am in the middle of making a film. So I have had very little time to dedicate to this show, although this episode is incredibly special and I'm a thrill to be bringing it to you now on the eve of embarking on

directing my very first feature film. So I just wanted to thank everybody who is a podcast listener and also became a Kickstarter supporter of my film access. Things are going strong. If you are a backer, you can get more updates and information via the Kickstarter page available only to Kickstarter backers. But I do want to thank everybody who supported me by the campaign. And honestly, not via the campaign. If you're a podcast listener and

you've been a supporter of the show, even if your support just entailed subscribing or telling your friends about it, well, then you are fucking rad. And if you haven't already, you know that the show has become a subscriber-only show. terms of the archive, meaning that the first 10 episodes are always free, available to you via iTunes, Stitcher, and on the website, girlon guy.net. But the back catalog, to access the back catalog of episodes, all 275-something episodes, you do need to become a subscriber. And if you haven't done so already, you can just go to girlong guy.com. Click on the upgraded premium access button, banner thing, and you'll download the app. Or you can actually listen to the show via a browser on your computer

if you like to listen at work. But if you have an Android or an iOS phone, you can get the app, which is free, and then subscribe for as little as 79 cents a month that gets you access to almost 300 episodes of Girl On Guys. So despair or not, if you're a new listener and you're wondering how to get at the back episodes, that is the way to do it. Before I get into the business quickly, I do want you to know that I will be doing a special fan appreciation event again this year at Comic Con, my annual fan appreciation event. It will be Thursday, July 21st in San Diego. If you've never done this before, here's how it works. This is a special event just for Girl and Guy listeners. 100 people win the opportunity to come to the event and be a part of

the live taping of an episode of Girl on Guy, live audience. And that's a great experience, but also lots of fun things happen. I sign posters and stickers. stickers and lots of gifts. It's essentially an opportunity for me to let you know how much I appreciate you by giving you presents and spending time with you. Last year we poured, last two years, actually, you've poured custom stone brewing beer. Two years ago, it was Wootzout 3.0 and then, or 2.0. And then last year it was my very own black IPA entitled Stone Cold Fox, brewed exclusively for Stone Brewing at Stone Brewing, and I'll be doing that again this year. So this is a really special event. You get to drink some stuff that I've created. You get t-shirts. You get stickers.

you get posters, you get fun, you get hugs, we sign stuff, we talk, and then you get to stay for a live taping of Girl and Guy. And as you know, because I'm only doing something like 12 episodes a year instead of my previous 50 plus, God, more than 50, I think 60. This is even a rare and more unique events. So to be a part of this, you have to enter a contest. And typically every year, it occurs on the 4th of July. But the Comic-Con is kind of early this year. I can't even, usually it's towards the end of July. I don't know.

It feels early this year. So we're going to start this contest a little earlier, and especially because I have fewer episodes available to you guys. The contest is going to be on the 4th of June. Saturday, the 4th of June. You need to be one of the first 100 people to send me an email at contest at girlon guy.net. That's contest at girlong guy.net and enter this contest with the subject line, Stone Cold Fox. The subject line should be Stone Cold Fox. cold fox, three words. Just send me an email saying you want to be a part of the special fan appreciation event this year.

Was that a word, special fan appreciation event this year at Comic Con on July 21st by sending me an email at 9 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, 6am Pacific Standard Time. If you enter before that, you won't be part of the contest. If you enter too far after that, you'll be too late. 9 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on Saturday, the 4th of June. send me an email to contest at grow on guy.net with the subject line stone cold fox to be entered in the contest 100 people win you get you get entry to this event you get lots of cool prizes and free gifts you get to hang out with me and we do a live episode of girl on guy with somebody very cool

it's always been somebody very wonderful uh got a couple years ago it was Shane west from Salem and Nikita last year it was Kevin Durand from the strain and Vikings and a million other things. And this year, I promise you it will be equally cool and you should be a part of it. So, oh, God, yeah, three years ago, it was Jared Padillackey from Supernatural. So lots of cool people have done this show and it's always a great time for everybody involved and especially me. I think I enjoy it more than anybody. So June 4th, 9 a.m. Eastern Time, 6 a.m. Pacific time. Send me an email at Contest at Growing Guy.com. With the subject line, Stone Cold Fox and the first 100 people will win a ticket to come see me.

at Comic Con. Be aware, no travel is involved. You've got to get yourself there. You've got to put yourself up. There's no travel included in this. It's just entrance to this event, but you'll go home with a bag full of fun, both literal and metaphorical. So I encourage you to enter on June 4th. And yeah, and I'll be tweeting and Facebooking about it closer to the date. Okay, let's get the business out of the way very quickly so that we can move on with the rest of our lives. This episode of Girl on Guy is brought to you in part by Casper. And if you don't know, Casper is a sleep brand that created one perfect mattress sold directly to customers in eliminating those commission driven inflated prices that you see when you go to a regular mattress store. They have award-winning

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Let them know that advertising with Girl on Guy is meaningful to you and them. Right? Yes. Okay. That's enough talking about stuff. Let's get into the meat of the show. This episode is with a woman who needs very little to no introduction, and that woman is the incredibly talented Ms. Viola Davis.

I'm not going to list her CV because she has just been nominated for so many things and done so many things and been in so many things. But two things that she's doing right now that are pretty extraordinary and meaningful are her huge hit series, How to Get Away with Murder, and the soon-to-be huge hit movie, Suicide Squad, where she plays Amanda Waller, the iconic Amanda Waller, and that movie is coming out this summer. She has been nominated for, I don't know,

more awards than I can list, including Obie Awards, Emmy Awards, SAG Awards, Golden Globe, Academy Award for Betis, supporting actress. Won a Tony Award for Best Actress for her role as Rose Maxen in Fences and nominated for the Golden Globe BAFTA Academy Award for her role in the Help. What a SAG Award for that. And then most recently was the first African-American woman, the first black woman of any

nationality, in fact, to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama series. She's a pretty special person with a pretty special story. and she is an example of the transcendence of focus, hard work, and talent. She came from an extraordinarily impoverished childhood that she talks about quite a bit in this conversation and has just gone on to and continues to go on to do incredible things. She inspires me every single day. I admire her greatly, and it was a real privilege to get to sit with her and have this conversation.

And I hope that you enjoy it. It is a real point of pride for me amongst many, many, many shows of which I am incredibly proud. So this is Girl on Guy 215 with the sensational actress and producer and artist, Viola Davis, coming at you, straight out of the brand new Girl on Guy bunker and just let it wash over you and fall into your face. Viola Davis, welcome to my show. Thank you. I'm thrilled with them. I'm going to push this a little closer to you so you can just be comfortable.

You know, I'm not going to be, hold on. I know one more thing I do. I don't want to be producing. I just like everything. That's done. Okay. Okay. So let me just say this, first of all.

I am beside myself. I'm beside myself. Because I, this show has always been an opportunity for me to talk to people that I admire, but I don't think there's many people that I admire as much as I admire you. I'm just thrilled. And I told her right before we started, I wanted to just start at the beginning. Okay.

If we could. Okay, because we're just going to do it. Just old school. There's so much I want to talk about. Where were you born? I was born in St. Matthew, South Carolina, Singleton plantation. I was born in my grandmother's house.

And my grandmother actually delivered me in 1965, August 11th. Can you tell me, you called it a plantation? Was it a historical plantation? Was it still a plantation at the time? It's still a function. plantation. It's about 160 acres. Yeah, it's a functioning plantation. My grandfather was a sharecropper. Okay. And so my family, my grandmother, Moselle Logan, my mother and her 17 siblings, not all of them survived. They lived in this sharecropper house with no indoor toilet or running water. That's where we were all born. Wow. And it's still functioning to this day. And, and, and it's still functioning to this day.

my mom always says that a midwife was supposed to come. Clara Johnson was a midwife who delivered most of us but she was late. So my grandmother had to deliver me and you know, that's how I came into the world, St. Matthew, South Carolina. Wow.

That must have, I mean, when you're young, you don't have a sense of, maybe even when you're an adult, you don't always have a sense of like the depth of your family history. Do you know what I mean? Yes. And how most of us, I'm saying nowadays,

are, you know, not immigrants, but migrants. You know, like my parents grew up on the East Coast. They moved out here when they were in their 20s. Yeah. But to grow up in the home that your family have been living in for all those generations, did you have a sense of that as a child? No.

Well, after three months, we moved to Rhode Island. Oh, okay, yeah, because I knew you, okay. Because my father groomed and trained horses on the racetrack. That's what he did for 25 years. My father had fifth grade education. My mom had an eighth grade education. My dad actually was illiterate until he was 15. Wow.

And so I say he had a fifth grade education. It was probably less than that. And, you know, I don't have a sense of my family history, even though I was born, my mom said my aunts, my uncles, everyone was in the house when I was born. I don't have a sense of that because I really grew up north. And, you know, now that I'm 50, not to be too existentialists and psychological about it,

but I'm realizing that family history, history has to deal more with who was your mother, who was your grandmother, what did they do? Yeah. That it's much more personal than that. You know, understanding that my mom was 15 when she first got married and she had a child, that as beautiful as my mom is, and she is beautiful and she is extraordinary. I think that you met my mom. Oh, she never quite explored her gifts.

It's like things like that. depression, people who never followed their dreams, people who did and let their inner life kind of trip them up. I think that I've inherited that, things like that, more than anything else. Right.

And to have a clearer sense, I think we might even talk about this, one of the times we were together recently, like in your own personal struggle, how many fewer, not that there aren't obstacles, but how many fewer obstacles that you and I face as black women that our mothers did.

Absolutely. And not just like the exterior obstacles that were apparent, but the interior ones of a sense of can I even do this when I can't see anybody like me doing it. Absolutely. And, you know, I still face those obstacles because as much success as I've experienced in my career, there is still a sense of I had the vision

to actually go after my dream, but I feel like I'm at the stage of understanding my significance and owning my story. That is what I still struggle with, you know, owning my vulnerability, owning the fact that, you know, sometimes I don't believe in myself. And then there are times I don't feel like I deserve what I have. So it's still an ongoing process, but I feel that a lot of the obstacles I face, my ancestors, my parents, didn't show me how to do it. Right, right.

I've been learning on the job. I've been learning, you know what? I've been learning how to fail. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I have a thousand questions for you. One of the, just in that, what you just said, I feel like it's so interesting because they couldn't have shown you, right, because they had never experienced on some level. They wouldn't have been no way.

Like sometimes when I talk with my parents, my father more than my mother, because my father similarly didn't get past the eighth grade. My mother's got a degree, but my father didn't make it past the eighth grade, although he's very tenacious. Sometimes I can't even really explain what I do to him. Yes. Do you know what I mean? Like not in a way, and he's incredibly thoughtful and intelligent, but just, it's just foreign. It's so foreign. And maybe what your parents would have imagined for you conceptually would have been, well, I want you to be really successful. And I see how, how extraordinary you are. But they could never have articulated this for you. No, not at all.

I don't think anyone could have. You know, I think that it's really on you. I was five years old when I met my sister for the first time, my sister Diane. She was nine years old. She was being raised by my grandparents, her and my oldest brother, because we were just too poor. I grew up in abject poverty. And I remember she said that what changed it for her was seeing an indoor toilet for the first time. the pristine white of the tub of the sink.

It made her want more. She grew up in segregated schools in the South. And I remember when I met her for the first time, I was five years old, and she asked, she looked around. We lived in an apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, that was infested with rats, had no, barely, the plumbing almost never worked. No phone.

We never had a phone. Plaster was falling off the walls. And she looked around and she said, if you don't want this for your life, Viola, You have to decide right now what you want to be. And I thought that that was incredibly articulate for a nine-year-old. But I think that she found it. She found those words, not because anyone taught her.

It is something that emotionally shifted in her when she saw it into a toilet. Now, for me, what shifted in me is her asking me. When she asked me what I wanted to be, it gave me permission to open that part of myself and go, okay, it's like Joseph Campbell says in The Hero of a Thousand Faces, he says that we're all born into an ordinary world where we don't fit, where something is awry. We just don't fit in it.

And then we get the call to adventure, the call for something bigger, the call to follow a dream, a passion, to find a treasure. My sister asking me what I want to, to be was my call to adventure. That was it. That was what

woke me up. Before that time, I didn't have any sense of that, of course, not at five. Right, how could you? Because all you know are your experiences. But you mentioned something earlier about the idea that for some people, when asked that question, they don't have an answer.

And maybe, you know, you were saying, people try and then their interior life kind of keeps them back, or they are incapable. of imagining what they could become. And sometimes that comes from no, no, there's no example, there's no model, you know what I mean? Absolutely.

There's no symbol. And then sometimes it's just the limitation of your own experience keeps you limited because you just can't conceive of any other thing. Absolutely. At five, we typically, you know, know our own experience and like, you know, your sister knew hers, right?

And then she came to where you were. Yeah. And I imagine that she had things there, that she hadn't had previously. Yes, exactly. Even though she was still in poverty, right? Yes, exactly. Sometimes you don't know what you're missing until you see it.

So I guess I wonder that at five or at six or at eight, how much of a sense you had of, I don't want this life, but I don't know what I want, or I know exactly what I want, what I want to change, or how I'm going to live when I'm an adult. Well, I always say when I first started therapy when I was 28 years old. Therapy is the best, by the way. I resisted it for so long.

And I'm like, I just love it. I was like, that's rich white people. I love it. No, honey. This black girl loved it. I love it. I love it. I love it.

I love it. I love it. My therapist always said that it was drive that got me out. You know, I didn't have a sense of anything at five years old other than I lived in great dysfunction. My father was a serious alcoholic and abused my mom horribly. And so I saw a great deal of violence in my household. I grew up in, what, it was 1970 at that time in an all-white community. So I definitely lived on the periphery of culture.

I mean, I was constantly being called names. People would throw things out the car, moving car door at us, and moving the window at us. So I didn't have any sense of myself other than my circle. But once again, when my sister asked me that question, what happened was because that door was open, then what was allowed to come in was, I always say when I was eight years old, I saw autobiography of Ms. Jane Pittman. And I say that all the time because I watch Sanford and Son. That's my mama, the Jeffersons, all those shows, what's happening. But for me, when I watched that performance, what happened was I sat with Jane Pittman for a woman for a woman. entire week. I knew her. I loved her. I felt for her. So what I understood was craft. And I saw what I

wanted to become. But here's the thing. I didn't know how to get from where I was to there. That's when you need mentors. And I know that's really kumbaya. People say, you need a mentor. or did you start a mentorship program? But what I mean by a mentor are, you know, it's like they say the heroes of all time have gone before you. People who've gone through the fire. They know the road. So they're able to throw you a rope.

And they're able to like you. They're able to teach you how to fail. They're able to say, okay, Viola, this is what you do. You start with A and then B and then C. All I had when I started was a drive of what I wanted to be. Not how to do it. Just that's what I wanted. And it was a dream. It was a passion bigger than my circumstances.

Mentorship also, I think people think of it as being kind of structured and specific. And it can be, right? You can have somebody really takes you under their wing. Exactly. But I had so many experiences and I wonder of just people even they would just throw a moment with you. Hey, I saw this and it was great and you should think about this. And you carry those around and you see them 10 days later. like, you know, this thing you said to me at a bar. Absolutely. You know, I lived by that for 15 years.

Absolutely. My therapist was a mentor. I mean, when she looked in my eyes and she said, Viola finds someone who loves you. I remember that from probably until the day I died because that's when I knew the difference between just looking for a man who liked me to looking for a man who I absolutely, who absolutely loved me, who I was.

But, yeah, I. needed a mentor. I didn't have any resources. My parents didn't have any resources. And I was really traumatized by my childhood. I really was. I mean, I'd go to school. It'd be eight, nine boys chasing me every day with bricks and sticks. I'd run home. I was a really fast runner. Crying, snot, dripping, crying. I didn't think I was pretty. I didn't think I was valuable. I didn't have anyone who taught me how to be valuable. A lot of times I went to school. My hygiene was really bad.

Because you didn't have the resources. I didn't have the resources. That's what I was a child. And so I needed someone to show me away. I needed like a god from the machine to pluck me out of that situation and shed a light. So all I had was a passion not to be where I was. That's it.

That's how it started. Struggle is how it started. And also to live in that much fear, like you must have just wanted to disappear, which is like the opposite of what you would have needed to do as an actor. Absolutely. You know what I mean? Stop folding in and kind of blossom. Well, absolutely.

And, you know, this is probably a later question. But what I You need vision, right? To get out. But that, but there's another step is in owning one story. And there was something in me that felt like I had to kill that part of myself that felt so vulnerable and inadequate. I had to just kill it. I had to just be this kind of wall of stone.

You know, I just remember growing up, and I always go back to the story. I do speaking gigs, and I tell this story all the time. It's a very short story because my father, who I love, by the way, he died in 2006. I absolutely loved my father. He absolutely made amends, all of that. But I remember when I was nine years old and my father and my mom were fighting. It was late at night in the middle of the night, and it bled out into the middle of the street. and he was actually trying to break her legs.

Oh, God. And the screams, we were screaming. My sisters and I were screaming. I know what my brother was. And I started screaming. And I couldn't stop screaming. It was hysterical screaming. I just, I was so anxious.

And my sister, older sister, said, you've got to get in the house. You've got to stop screaming. And I ran into the house. I ran into the bathroom. I got down on my knees and I put my hands together. and I prayed. And I said, God, if you exist, I'm going to count to 10.

And when I open my eyes, I don't want to be here anymore. I don't want to be here. And when I count to 10, if I open my eyes, if I'm still here, then I know you don't exist. And I put my hands together and I counted. And I got to 10 and I opened my eyes and I was still there. And I remember thinking then, I knew it. you're not going to save me.

And it's only later in life that I realize how much I was saved, how much he did take my life. And this is not just kind of a Christian testimony of believing in God and Christ and all of that. It's an understanding that because I asked for something in my heart, I asked, really put it out in the universe, that I did not want this life. life, that what it's set in motion, like anything, is you've got to believe it in order for it to be true, is what it's set in motion is that something happened at the age of nine that slowly I began to move away from that life in every way. And it's not just becoming an actress. It's actually even becoming a healthy human being, you know. Right. Choosing a different life for yourself, not in a literal way. Absolutely.

Right, like in an existential way, in a spiritual way, in a metaphysical way. Absolutely. I'm going to change everything. Absolutely. Yeah. You talked about, like, being a stone wall, and you also talked about vulnerability a little earlier. I've really been, there's this woman who does this talk on, Renee Brown.

Yes, on vulnerability, which I just want. I'm the last person in the world to see this thing. But it's so great because I feel, and I wonder, if you feel, I mean, I imagine that that toughness had to have served you in this business. And it's very hard to let go of. I think if you're like a, if you're a driven woman, period. I don't want to say businesswoman or active. If you're a driven woman period, there's a big part of you that is very reluctant to show

vulnerability in any context, right? Absolutely. Because people see it as weakness. Absolutely. And then you're a woman of color. And then you're a woman of color in the conditions that you're you're a woman of that you grew up and then later in a business that has traditionally been inhospitable to women of color.

Absolutely. And I imagine that became this really comfortable shield for a very long time. Absolutely. Jumping ahead and then we'll jump back. But I wonder if there was, what was the moment or what was the experience of the set of experiences where you thought, I'm ready to let some of this fall away? I'm ready to be more vulnerable. I'm ready to fail.

Well, that's a hard one because there's no time that that happened. And, you know, maybe if I were to say a definite period, probably becoming a mother, I think it was a series of experiences that's taught me. And, you know, I hate to be existentialist again. Probably the older I get, the more I realize it no longer serves me. Right. You know, I'm a woman who's been plagued by fibroids my entire life. You know, I'm a woman that's been plagued by anxiety my entire life until my big aha moment.

was, you know, there's no way to kill one's vulnerability. My dad dying. Yeah. That's probably my, was my aha moment. My dad, there is nothing that could prepare you for someone you love, watching them died. He died from pancreatic cancer. He wasted away to 86 pounds, and I was with him when he took his last breath.

And I remember I had to tell him to go. And I thought that that was so easy. It's like you see it in the movie. You saw it in longtime companion. All you have to say is, Dad, I love you. You know, I'm an actor. Boy, I'm in touch with my emotion.

But your life is going to end one day. It's going to end. No one gets out of this. It doesn't serve. It has never served me to be a stone. I don't know how to do it anymore. I don't know how to raise it. my child and not tell her

that there was a time and I didn't believe in myself, I don't think that that's going to help her. I do believe what Brune Brown says, which we are not rational creatures who are sometimes emotional. I think that we are all the way emotional creatures who are sometimes rational, sometimes

have moments of rationality. I think that we're driven by memory, we're driven by pain, we're driven by a sense of wanting to experience joy and happiness. And I do believe that happily ever after comes after you've done the work, after you've struggled, after you've been in the ditches

and you've experienced the pain. There's been lots of moments getting married. And knowing that it doesn't intimacy. Right. It's a big block to intimacy to be an emotional stone. Yeah, it is a big block to life. It's a big block as an actor. Yeah.

Because what we do as actors is to be private. it in public. Yeah, yeah. You know, and we make people feel less alone as actors. We make people feel like, oh, I thought it was just me. Right, right. And there's no way to do that. If you, everything that you experience in life, you just suck down. I remember I just watched, it was a, it was a preacher, was a Christian preacher who said, oh, my church. And he said, it's a famous quote in the Bible where he says, you know, Jesus looked at, it was a woman, maybe it was Mary Magdalene, and he said, why are you crying? And he used it as a metaphor. Why are you crying? And I asked myself that a lot, you know, why are you crying, Viola? Why do you feel?

that when you're in a crowd of people, that you don't belong. And the only way I can answer that question is to be vulnerable. Right. And maybe there, I mean, you just said it perfectly that we're, you know, that Brunei Brown principle, that we're emotional with these brief periods of rationality, that you kind of spend all of your youth, like, trying to control and bend the world to your will. Absolutely. And then from that comes so much frustration.

Yeah. Right. And anger, because I just remember one day when I was younger thinking, why can't people just do what I want? Especially in the context of this business. Like what can I just go? And then like that surrender, right? That release isn't is not a position of weakness.

It's this incredible position of strength. Absolutely. You are releasing yourself from a bunch of ideas about how you should behave and how you should feel. And you're just able to kind of be human. Absolutely. And I believe another thing, Brunei Burr. said, which is we are afraid to be vulnerable because we're afraid to be judged. Right. Right. But when you share your story in front of people who have empathy and who care

about you, shame can exist. I do believe that. And I believe that a lot of times all of my vulnerability, all of my shame, all of that has come from the fear of being judged. And you're judged anyway. Yeah, and you're going to be judged regardless, right? I mean, that's the thing. The world will never bend to your will. And once you release yourself from that, then you just go live your life. Yeah, exactly. Yep, exactly. It takes a long time. That's just fed a thousand orphans. Well, what about the thousand first? You know what I mean? So you're living in this community. And we didn't have similar experiences, but I think one thing we shared was that I was the only black kid in my school for a long time. as well.

Yeah. Which is incredibly isolating and I think can either put you, I mean, I just remember one day, like, spent it for like a period of time, like spending every day at lunch, like, behind the building. You know what I mean? Just why I didn't have to interact with people. Just, you know, just be alone and I don't have to like. Or really trying to find a way in, I guess I wonder, you have this kind of moment or series

of aha moments as a child. Who was that mentor or what was that first step for you where you thought, okay, I know what I want to do and I'm going to try to figure out how to do it. Did somebody come to you? Did you reach out? There were several people for me because I grew up in abject poverty, but I was a pretty good student. So the Up and Bound program, there's all kinds of educational programs out there

where people are interested in kids like that, kids who have potential. Right, right. So I remember it was, if I were to name an event, there's so many teachers. My teachers went to my wedding. I mean, my first two weddings and actually this past wedding, two teachers. Yeah, there were some people that you had grown up with. They were teachers now. Yeah, that was so lovely.

Those people are important to you. Yeah, so that's me. Yeah. But I had, there was a competition that I, someone gave me a program on this competition to audition for. Florida. Now, this is me growing up in abject poverty, never been on the plane. And I remember going to a counselor of mine at Upward Bound and showing him this brochure and said, I can't do this. He said, why? I said, because, first of all, I have to get a VHS, one of those CDs or whatever

to tape myself. He said, okay, how much do they cost? I said, 50. I don't have $15. He said, I'll give you $15. What else? And I said, well, I got to tape it. I don't know. I have anywhere to tape it. He said, I can go to Rhode Island College, a television studio.

They could tape it for you. What else? And I said, well, he said, you've run out of excuses. That was my big aha moment. That I had created all of these obstacles in my mind and none which were valid. And I know I wish I had a better story than that But that was it for me And I was 16 years old

And that was a big deal Someone who literally I could call by his first name Jeff Kenyon I would call him Jeff And I'd call him in the middle of the day And I said, I need you And he would say, I'll be there

And he would come into my classroom He would interrupt the class He said I have to talk to Viola And I said hi Jeff And my teacher at my high school said, you don't call him by his first name. And Jeff Kenyon said, I told her she can call me by my first name. Come on, Viola.

And he talked to me in the hallway. And then I was able. And I feel like that's a mentor, you know, someone who teaches you how to master a skill, how to fail, and someone who just likes you. Someone who likes you, likes the person you are. He was that person for me. And someone who validates you. I mean, you just validate, you know, just didn't treat you like, you know, just another kid, right?

Like a whole person. Yeah. I do believe sometimes people have to give you permission. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because most of the time the world's not giving you permission. Yeah, absolutely.

Someone's got to let you know it's okay to be who you are. Yeah. You sent this tape in. Was that? Did that? I sent the tape in and I actually was one of 30 students out of thousands who got chosen to go to Florida and do this big old swanky thing, which I was totally out of place because socially I was so shy and I still am shy,

but I was painfully shy. I had huge anxiety issues. Even on stage, I would melt. I mean, literally, I mean my stomach. I would fall apart even with rehearsal. Wow. Absolutely horrific socially. When, which makes sense, I mean, given your experience as a kid, but when?

when this is not I mean there's like a series of questions one is like when did that end or what tools did you use you know I mean sometimes for actors the great thing about performing is you can kind of disappear into this other person absolutely all of their bravery

and their boldness and their perfect words that someone's you know fiddled and diddled with for weeks you know we can never think of the right thing to say but the character always does can emboldened you but I wonder like when did that fall away for you as an actor Well, as far as acting is concerned, what helped me was doing what I do.

I've been doing what I do for well over 30 years. I've performed in every theater in the United States. I've performed on Broadway, off Broadway. I've taken every acting class anyone could possibly take. So that helped in terms of acting, in terms of technique, in terms of all of that. The personal part is always what's. trips you up. It just is. But I remember my therapist at 30 years old saying Viola, what if all these things you're constantly just harping on yourself about? What if you stayed shy?

What if even your weight never changed and you stayed kind of looking exactly the way you are, that you just kept all those shortcomings? Would you be okay? And I thought about it. I thought to myself, wow, you're a trained professional. You're supposed to change all these things that I feel on my shortcomings. She said, because they may never change. So would you be okay if they never changed? And I thought to myself, yeah, I'd be okay. I'd be okay. If I just stayed where I was, because I do believe, You know, I say this all the time. It's Irvin Yalom quote. He's a famous psychotherapist, and he said that a time came when one of his patients came into his room,

and she gave up all hope of a different past. And that's what it was for me, that I kept trying to fit into something else. I kept trying to change my past, trying to change who I was, trying to even change. change my thought patterns, who I was in my inner life, just something to make me feel comfortable to kind of settle in life without anxiety. And then I realized in that one moment when she was talking to me was the big aha moment was acceptance. Right, right, which is just such a freedom. Yeah. Such a freedom. You go and you do this big performance in Florida. You're 16, 17 at the time. Oh, yeah.

And you come back home and were you like galvanized? Like this is that this is what I'm going to do. Oh yeah, absolutely. I was galvanized. Yeah. But still really shy. Yeah. You know, so I didn't know how to deal with the personal aspects.

Like I could get up there in audition and just feel like I blew it out of the box. But then if I had to sit with anyone and have a one-on-one conversation, that was it. I was done. I couldn't do it. Oh, my God. I couldn't do it. So what happens next? Because you do go off to.

college. Yep. Went to college. In Rhode Island? Rhode Island College. I got a BA. Oh, and was that close to your family? Were you able to stay close to your family? I stayed close to my families in Providence. So, yeah. And you got a BA in? I got a BA in theater.

Yeah. Okay. And because, go ahead. And then, but after that, I took a year off because I said, I want a boyfriend because I never had a boyfriend. And I wanted to perform. I wanted to leave the country. I want to perform out of the country. And then I wanted to be. become a professional actress. And I actually did all three of them. Believe it or not. I performed at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland.

The fringe festival. Then I went to Juilliard. And I became a professional actress. I got my equity card. I performed at Trinity Rep and Providence. I got a boyfriend. He was no good. But at least I fulfill somewhat of the duty.

You got to go. Everybody has to go through you. You got to start somewhere. You got to start somewhere. Yeah, I mean, even if it's just to figure out what you know you don't want. Yeah. What was that like? I mean, your first trip anywhere had been to Florida and then is this essentially your second trip and you go to Scotland? Scotland. What did that? You know, it's, I almost prefer, I don't like being glib. I mean, I can be very sarcastic, but I don't, I just, I, you said so many things I've agreed with and one of them is like, you just, you were all going to die. And like, there's no point in being glib.

You know what I mean? Like, this is it. This is, these are the experiences, right? It's not like, you know, waiting for some new shit to happen. Like, this is it. So I just wonder, like, what was that like for you, even with the shyness? but you'd set this goal for yourself and you'd accomplished it. Yeah.

What did it feel like to be walking through Edinburgh? I imagine a place where you, a few years earlier, I'd never imagine that you would be. Well, it felt fantastic. I lived in an apartment that was, oh gosh, the guy who wrote Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle. Oh, yeah, yeah, Arthur Conan Doyle. It was actually, it was a street named after him.

Oh, cool. So I stayed in an apartment with other actors. and, you know, we drank scotch, which I don't drink scotch at all. But I have to drink scotch, yes. I have to drink scotch when I'm in Scotland. And we played cards. I don't even play cards, but I played cards. And we would perform at night.

We would walk to the theater at night. I performed like four or five plays. None of them were any good. But I have to tell you. And I don't mean to say this to sound like I'm a purist, even though I sort of am. But I love acting. I love doing what I do.

It's only been after I came to Los Angeles that I realized so many people come up to me and say, well, I want to be where you are right now. That's what I want to do. I've always just wanted to be an actress. I love the process of acting. I love the process of putting together a character. Even if I knew I was tanking,

I would rather not tank. But even if I were tanking I mean one of the plays I did I played Socrates's wife who went to a therapist because I was depressed because my husband he never spoke. You just all he did was think all the time. So I mean just

Yeah, it was a wonderful. I was an actor. I mean, I'm telling you, we have the best profession in the world when you take away all the kind of social media stuff and all the business and walking into rooms with these big executives who were looking at you like you have two horns coming out of your head. When you take away all of that, the absolute, the work of what we do,

it's the best profession in the world. And when you were describing it to me, I literally could not stop smiling because I was just thinking of like being, you know, 19 or whatever, and in Scotland and living in an artist's loft and playing cards and drinking, got to doing plays. And going, you know, having a water closet, you know. And understanding what that meant and flying British airways. Right. And listening to all the stories, sitting with people and restaurants and listening to stories, going to visit Mary Queen of Scott's Castle. Yeah.

And seeing other performances from all over the world, all of these actors and all of their ideas that they put out there, most of which were bad, but it's all in the process. Right. You know, I loved it. I felt like I was an actor and I felt like I was living my dream. I did. Did you get a different sense of yourself at that point? Of like what was possible and what you wanted for yourself?

See, I'm tough because my life taught me how to be tough. My life taught me how to, you know, my mom just went to the hospital because my dad beat her up. So I have enough anxiety that it was just through the roof, but I still have to go to school and I still have to, you know, perform. And I still, and then I have to come back home to that same environment. I know how to do that. I don't recommend it. It's horrible life. I understand that. But I know how to be tough. I know how to get up once I've been beaten, just down for the count. So I knew how to do that. So I just felt like I was tough. Like I could set a goal and I could just whip it out.

It was the other stuff I wasn't so good at. Right, right. Yeah. You go back to the United States and you, this is after Rhode Island College, but before Juilliard, this is, you know what? This was after Rhode Island College and before Juilliard, literally a week before Juilliard.

Wow. And then you're going to go to the most prestigious acting school in the world. Yeah. which, you know, it's just, I'm just, I'm so glad we're having this conversation. I just feel like, and I don't want to simplify it. I don't want to make it rags to riches of the American dream. I don't want to make it any of those things. I think it's maybe simpler and also more complex than that, but I just feel like you, for you, for whatever reason, because of who you are or this, this aha moment you have with this story, the aha moment you have and you were praying that you could see this distant point on the her.

horizon and you were just kind of always working your way. The only thing that I saw was I wanted to be a professional actress. And you know, I say all this and what really blows all this to shit is that when you look at the yearbook, my yearbook and it says, you know, future ambition, I say I want to be rich and famous, which to me ruins everything because I always say, I want to be an actress. I'm like rich and famous. I mean, I'm full of shit just like everyone else. but I really wanted to be a professional actress.

That, like I said, I was totally driven. That's the only thing I saw. Right. I wanted to be, and I'll tell you what I wanted, I wanted to be on that Broadway stage. I wanted people to throw roses at me. I wanted the smell of the theater. I wanted to hear that pin drop whenever anything came out of my mouth.

I wanted to be like the Colleen Dewhurst. and the Miss Tyson's and the Julie Harris and all the great ladies of the theater, I wanted to win a Tony Award. That was my goal. That's the only thing I saw. I only had vision. That's all I had. And then you go to this place that is going to give you tools, right?

I mean, I don't think that there's probably anything more impressive than the Juilliard degree, but you're making it. I said the tone. What was that experience like? What was Giuliar like? You know, I compared Giuliarre to mucinex because my daughter hates mucinex. She spits it out every single time. It's really, I know it must taste horrific, but I'm telling you right now it works.

In the end, it really does work. It really dries up all that mucus and all the gucky things that are inside. And I compared Juilliard to that because from the moment I walked in there, it was, they call it the jail yard for a reason. It feels like a jail sentence because what Juilliard is, it's classical training. So what they're teaching you are techniques in order to transform. So if you want to play a 90-year-old Russian woman, you can transform. You have the vocal techniques. You have the, you know, you have all of that too. You know, you have the physical techniques. You teach, they teach Alexander technique. They literally, when you're rehearsing, they put a pencil in your mouth,

see where your tongue is so you can articulate your diphthongs and your vowels correctly. So the first year was all about seeing what you do well. I do well with that because I could show you what I have. And then from then on, it's about focusing on all the things that you don't do well. Right. And that's where I had difficulty because I always felt that I deserve to be an actress, that I had something in me. Look, I got into Juilliard. But from second year to fourth year, I thought, okay, do I even belong in this profession?

Because everything that I was, I had to put on the side. All of a sudden, I'm not a size two, and that's a problem. All of a sudden, I'm a black woman, and that's a problem. All of a sudden, I sound like a black woman, even though I don't know what that is, that's a problem. So basically everything that I am or was and am is a problem. And that mirrored what was going on in my inner life at 23 years old. It was hard.

Hard at Juilliard. It was hard for everyone, though. Right, right. It's interesting because I guess that built into this business generally is this kind of ongoing feeling of inadequacy. You know, it's hard not to take so much of what you get back from this business as, as a criticism or devaluing. You're not young enough.

You're never too young. Yeah, there's never the answer to never. No, just that you're not young enough. But, you know, you're too fat, you're too thin, you're too black, you're not black enough. It's just, it's impossible. to let that stuff affect you. And like I said, I think probably your toughness might have really been useful to you

for a good part of your career. But it seems like a lot of that toughness was being whittled away or eroded in this context. And the toughness was just external. Right. It was not internal. Right. You know, and, you know, the thing about our profession is,

and it's what I learned as an actor in my journey, is, you know, it's back in the days of the actor studio and Meisner and all the people like Shelley Winters and De Niro's and, you know, Marlon Brando. What they were taught was to observe life. Right. That's the inspiration, what we do. We create human beings. Once I came to L.A., especially, what I've observed is people find their inspiration in terms of what they've seen on TV and film, before. It no longer is life. It's no longer how people really look. It's no longer how people actually even really behave. And it's taken me a long time to realize that, so what am I trying to be long to? Because in the midst of the business and walking the red carpets and hair and

makeup and all those things, that there comes a time that you start to believe that is what you do. Right. Because it seems to be so much more overweening than just getting it and doing the work. I mean, it's all people pay attention to. It's all they ever ask about. Absolutely. But you, but I realized that all the performances that really were relevant to me in my life were moments, the moments that made me lean in was, it's like someone like Merrill Streep in Kramer versus Kramer. And you absolutely felt like you knew who that woman was. was, as cold as ice woman who just abandoned her child. And she ends up just being a woman who just doesn't have a maternal instinct. That's human.

That's something that is of value. I mean, it's like Picasso painting. He just, he said, I paint what's behind the eyes, not what's in front of. And I realize that is what it is that I've always wanted to do. but in the midst of being at Juilliard, I really, once again, I started feeling that thing that I needed to be an 80-pound white ingenue.

And literally, I had one performance at Juilliard where they cast me as an ingenue because they knew that was not my strong suit. So they cast me as an ingenue and a couple of different performances. One of them was Blanche Dubois. but one of them was this George Bernard Shaw and I remember I changed my voice

I made it like three or four octaves higher and I remember what I tried to do was be very light on my feet instead of like trumping like I usually do and I tried to like imagine myself as pretty that's what I was trying to do literally imagine myself as pretty I remember a friend of mine who is really a friend who said, Viola, that was probably the worst performance I've ever seen that you ever did. She said, usually I see, I feel like you get it.

But this was one performance. I don't think you ever got it. And then it's only at 50 years old, I can look back now and think, okay, so what does it mean to be an ingenue? Right. Who is an ingenue? Who is the pretty girl? What's pretty?

Right. I never asked myself that question. I just felt like that was a parking space that you could arrive parking, and that was it. That was a set standard of who that human being was. And I tried to be her. And listen, it was a great experiment while I could do it because it made me go down

an avenue in a path that was at least transformative. It ultimately was a failure, but it was an aha failure. But, yeah, that was the kind of stuff. But even the questions that you asked bring up the general fallacy of that concept, you know, as a whole. And it's one that I think that this culture's culture generally and this town specifically still adhere to so much. I want to talk about theater, but I actually want to jump ahead just because this made me think of, I mean, this is just a statement of fact of people listening. This is not like a complaint or a rallying crime.

just a statement of fact of the number of times that I have heard, and I, you and I are actually relatively close in age, but I'm sure you've heard it even more than I. The number of times people have told me this won't work. People won't watch a movie with a black lead. People won't watch a series with a black lead. People won't, people won't watch an action movie with a female lead. Like, like, and they're saying it in the most genuine way that they can. They're not saying it from racism. They're saying it because it's a set of beliefs that have been handed to them. and then you can point to 20 examples where they're wrong and they'll find a reason why all of those are an exception.

And I guess, you know, you aren't the exception that proves the rule. You're the exception that proves that the rule is false. Absolutely. Because it's now been disproved so many times. But there are still people who continue to advance that set of concepts, right? This is what a young, this is what a beauty. This is what's conventional. This is what works.

This is what commercial. very long lead up to one of the reasons why I believe that murder has worked so well is because of extraordinary bravery on your part. Like because of an unwillingness to subscribe to a bunch of TV rules that a lot of other actors would have subscribed to out of fear or panic or discomfort or just basic like belief in convention. Absolutely. We don't, you know, TV has to look this way and characters have to feel this way and I'll take it this far, but no farther. Absolutely.

So I guess just a lot of stuff. So here's the question. Do you hear you what I'm saying? So I guess the question buried in all of that is by the time you came to this show. Yeah. Did hearing that for all of those years of being in this business of saying, well like,

okay, this work, but that's because. you come into a show that's your own and you really have the opportunity to shape it in exactly the way that you want. And did you think, well, I'm going to lead on a big network show so I'm going to try to do things the way that they say. Absolutely. Versus this is my fucking shot when I'm going to take my wig off on TV.

You know what I mean? Because I think a lot of us would be like, oh, no, you know. Or someone would say, I don't know if you want to do that. That might not, you know what I mean? Like what has that been like, I guess? Well, I mean, I had a great director. who once said that the worst, well, the best thing, but the worst thing that can happen with an actor is when they wake up. You know, and I believe that the same is true for people, the moment you know better.

You've got to do better. And, yes, when they presented me the role of Annalise Keating, it was described as sexy, mysterious, possible sociopathic. Then once again, I was that person who felt like, for a minute, one minute that felt like I had to mirror what's been done in the past with sexy mysterious women and they all are the same you know they're cold

they look a certain way they whittled down to nothing they have the hair going on or whatever but one of the things I quickly said when the role was given to me is she needs to take a wig off but the reason why I said that is because I knew that once she took the way

off, that they would have to deal with that woman. They would have to deal with what is behind the mask because I'm not a TV watcher and I never believe that woman. I always believe she's an extension of male fantasy and she's an extension of cultural fantasy. And of male fear, right? Yeah, and male fear. That anything, not just artistic, Anything that has been progressive has got to be different. The first time you actually saw a couple laying in the same bed together on screen. The first time a woman wore a pair of pants on screen. And I wanted, what I wanted was to create a show where the audience had to come into my life,

that I wasn't reducing what I did to come into their lives. And I feel that what happens is what we do is so vulnerable that when you put pen to paper or when you create anything, it's an extension of your lack of imagination or your expansiveness of imagination and whoever you are as a person. That's what it is. That's all it is.

So when people say, black people can't be this. listen my daughter right now is five and three quarters and one of the things I always start she always says at night she says I want to hear a story about you auntie diane auntie anita auntie dolores when you're growing up so I'll tell her a story it's a real story too and she'll say she always stops me and says I want to be in the story and I say well Genesis you weren't born yet she said I don't care I don't kill mommy I want to be in it just put me in it I said okay Genesis but we kill a monster.

She said, I want to be the one who kills a monster. I said, but Genesis, I'm going to put you in the carriage. You have your Baba. And she said, I don't care. I want to kill the monster, Mommy. I want to kill a monster. So I said, okay. So Genesis picks up her Baba.

And she splatters the milk all over the monster, and he melts and da-da-da-da-da. And she's so happy. Because even at that age, what happens is we want to be in the story. We see ourselves in the story. We don't put any limitations on ourselves. The only limitations is your imagination. And what happens so often with people of color is, I do believe this, and this is sort of a criticism.

This is a criticism. And this is not just the fault of Caucasian. This is the fault of us too, of African Americans. We are complicit, I think, on a lower level. Is that image and message becomes bigger than execution and artistry. that there's no real effort to explore our pathology. And I feel like once again, that's a reflection of our lives. Black women have a high rate of depression and anxiety.

And one of the reasons is that culturally we can't admit when we're vulnerable. We feel like that's a white person's problem. And so if we're doing that in our lives, and there's a feeling that we need the swagger, we need the mask. Everything's perfect. I'm rich and I'm living this life and I woke up this way. And this, you know, my edges are nice and all of that. And then we critique narratives based on that.

The big girl is always the best friend. The bigger, blacker girl is always the best friend. The cuter, lighter one is always the girlfriend. There's always the dark guy who didn't take care of the woman and then the light skin guy who rolls in and saves her. Absolutely. And there's no way of embracing manhood unless that man has a six-pack abs. He can't be James Gandalfini.

He can't be Peter Falk and Colombo. He can't even be Jack Klugman and Quincy. He's got to have six-pack abs. And what I would say is that affects the narrative. That affects the work. That disallows people to really enter into who we are as people. And it limits us. And then what you become in any narrative is a device.

I didn't want that for Annalise. I don't, and that's why I reject structure. I reject labels with her. I reject people who say I'm miscast. Why am I miscast? What am I supposed to look like? Who is she supposed to look like? I reject all of that because what I'm trying to do is get people in some way to explore who we are as women.

just to sit for 42 minutes, you know, sit with a woman and understand that, yeah, we get depressed. We marry people who screw up. We screw up. We make mistakes. We're smart. We're all of those things. I mean, she is such, it's interesting because I guess that people see her as an anti-hero,

and that would be accurate. But I find her so compelling. and so sympathy, so insanely sympathetic. Like, you know, I mean,

she shouldn't be really because she is, she is sociopathic, but she has this incredible vulnerability that I think you've crafted beautifully in these steps over, you know, that it's just been two seasons.

Wow. And what you just said speaks to this larger issue that you brought up about how, we'll complain, oh, like, you know, Hollywood or other, you know, groups won't let us be ourselves, but we won't let us be ourselves because the number of times someone has said, you know, to me, oh, black people don't do that, black people don't listen to that kind of music, black people.

I have a friend who worked on a show where he was at the crafty table and someone said, oh, black people don't eat bagels. He was like, black people don't eat bread with a hole in the middle. Like, what the, black? Or black people don't swim. I mean, whatever it is. Oh, we don't come from New England. Yeah, exactly. Exactly, all of that, right?

You know, like, or my parents, they were vegetarians growing up. You know what I mean? Like, what the hell is that? Like, people eat meat. That idea of, that somehow everybody else gets to be diverse and complex, and we have to be a monolith. We have to be one way. Absolutely.

Absolutely. We put that limitation on ourselves as much as, and I think sometimes more, and look, the other cultures, you know, are going to see us a certain way, but I think we are constantly putting ourselves back in our own box. Well, mentally, if I were to, mentally, if I were in just a few seconds, just meditate on it, and reject everything that culture has said about dark-skinned women, about big lips, wide nose, about black people in general, if I were to forget Jim Crow laws and segregation and slavery for one minute, then I could then ask myself the question, who are you, really?

How do you really feel about it? If you were to give up all hope of a different past, put all the lenses aside. All of those limitations aside, who are you really? When I was a kid, the most beautiful woman, we would wait for her at the door, was my aunt Joyce. she was over 300 pounds and she literally had the classiest, hippest clothes. And the day she had, the afro was beautiful.

Her skin, we would touch her skin, we would jump on her all the time. She had the big hoop earrings. I actually thought she was beautiful. Now, if I were to sit in a room full of people who have issues about black women, issues about weight or whatever, I don't know if I would have spoke it publicly. But inside, without anyone defining beauty, to me, I saw her as beautiful. And I think it's like writers like Arthur Miller, who was a first man who created the anti-hero. In Rilly Lohman and Eddie in View for the Bridge.

One of his things was he always said, this is not the finest man who ever lived. But he's going through something. So his story deserves to be told. And that's simply what a narrative is all about. Listen, everyone else may walk through life asleep, but we as artists, we've got to be, our receptors have got to be on with every moment. Whoever a person perceives themselves as being,

whatever mask they put on, we have a different gauge inside of us that sees all of that and could blow it to smithereens. And it's our responsibility to take that and to infuse it in our work in whatever way we can, that's what being an artist is all about. And being a good artist is having the courage to do it

in the midst of a business where almost no one is doing it. Right, right. And in the midst of a business, again, going back to something you said earlier, in the midst of a business and a culture where there is so much fear of judgment. Absolutely. To decide, oh, the art is the most important thing here. Absolutely. don't care about the

ramifications. You know what I mean? This moment, right? This moment of truth is all that matters. Absolutely. I just, I just, we're never going to get to everything, and we're running out of time. But, so we're not going to get to talk about all the time on theater, but, you know, on Broadway.

No, I do, I do want to ask you about your first, I just want to ask you about your first, because I said you wanted a Tony, which you have. This is the most facile question, but I just want to ask you what that, was like what it was like to win that Tony to again to set this goal for yourself my opening night on Broadway with seven guitars that was my first opening night then I went on to do two more Broadway shows is everything that I thought acting would be every beautiful vision that I ever thought it would be

the excitement the smell of the theater the people throwing me flowers I could not have written it better in my brain the Tony, but even if I didn't win the Tony, because I didn't, I was nominated the first time and I didn't win. But being on Broadway is everything that I thought it would be. My other experiences in my acting career have been wonderful, but filled also with disillusionment also. Right, right. Now that you're at the place that you're at now, right, a very different place. Where you, I know people come up to you and they go, I want to be where you are now. And, you know, there's a lot of responses to that.

And one of them might be, thank you. And another one might be look, we look one way, and it feels a completely different way. Absolutely. You know, I think people do feel like, you know, you can write your own ticket, and you can get anything greenlit, and you can do what you want.

I mean, obviously you're in a different, you're closer to being in that situation than you might have been, like, five or ten years ago. But one thing I know I find frustrating, especially as a woman and as woman of color, is you don't really ever get to a point where you can get any finger in later, make what you want, or snap your fingers. No, it's just, and I guess accepting that, like we were talking about,

it frees you from the frustration of being like, why isn't the world doing what I want them to do? Absolutely. But you are making your own things. You are creating things now. Absolutely. Well, my husband and I started our own production company. It's a play on both of our names, JuV, because it's like my husband said, I said it too. There's not a room filled with.

terrific scripts for African-American women from floor to ceiling and they're just waiting for an African-American actress to break out, then they're going to release all these great narrative. It's just not there. Yeah, yeah. It's just not there. And so, once again, it's kumbaya. I know it's, you know, very hackneyed, but it's, you've got to be the change that you want to see.

And so my whole thing was, I have the same background as a, I don't know, a Holly Hunter, a Grony Weaver, Julian Moore, Merrill Street. I came out of a major school. I've done Broadway, off-Broadway, theater, TV, film. I have a 30-year career. And yet, I've always sort of was before, you know, the help and how to get away with murder. I've always been the third girl from the left. Right.

My opportunities haven't matched my experience. Right. So what I started to create projects that I wanted to see myself in the transformative projects like Harriet Tubman like Barbara Jordan who's a great congresswoman out of Houston,

Texas, because that's a transformative role for me and now that I actually have a deal with Fox Searchlight we have Tony Kushner who is a friend of mine from Juilliard who's writing it, now I'm scared because now I said okay now I actually have to do it

And also the understanding that, and once again, this is also not kumbaya, this is actually specific. Me thinking specifically is, for me, your life is just a dash. Right. Right. So what do you want to do in that dash? I mean, Goldie Hawn, I'm mentioning all the actresses that I love. Goldie Hawn was, I remember the top actress back in the day, private, Benjamin, whatever. Now she's older, okay? She doesn't have that career anymore. It's just

how you evolve in this business. So what do you want to put out there? For me, it's like running a relay race. My biggest complaint with a lot of actors out there is a lot of times they drop the baton. Because what happens is in a relay race, they always have the best runners, greatest runners. And you run your leg and you run your leg and you pass a baton to the next runner who is badass and then they pass it to the next one and they're badass and they take it to the finish line right I just want to run my leg of the race that's all I want to do and my leg of the race if I were to think of winning and what the finish line is is to somehow change the landscape of what I saw when I was a young African American actress and I've got to pass a baton

so not everything that we do is for me it's just not there are some terrific actors of I've worked with them I've had a 30 year career Barbara Meek Rose Weaver Linda Gravade Gwendolyn Mulumba

Elisa Perry Rosalind Ruff I mean I can name all of these actresses of color who are unknown nameless faceless but who are terrific all that they're waiting for the opportunity. So the only thing I could do is somehow throw it out there, run my leg of the race.

That's all I want to do with a juvie. And then I could step back. I'm 50 years old now. When I'm 62, I don't want to work 17 hours a day. I don't want to do that. I really don't. I mean, I know that God may have a different plan for me, but right now, it's just not looking attractive. I understand exactly. I sit behind the table. Onset at three in the morning and I'll let me like, okay, yeah. I mean, I like, you know, it's, I love what I'm doing now and I'm grateful for, but yeah, I don't want to be, I don't want to be here. So that's good. So this is the last question around that and then we can do self-infected wounds if you have one and if not we can go home. But I guess this is, it's like the same question in a different way, which is that

kind of you're not, this is not the right word, but this is not a commonative point, but it is a point where you are now, why you have, you know, this incredible hit show, and, you know, you're going to be in this big franchise movie, you know, this, you know, Suicide Squad. And, you know, it's a different, it's a different kind of success versus something like, you know, doubt or the help. But, you know, you've got this, you're at this commercial point in your career. Yeah. And you're thinking about these stories about what you want to do. I guess there's, what is the thing that you haven't done that you're thinking when I'm not doing murder anymore? I want to spend my time doing this

because you've done every single thing that an actor can do. Oh, I have. Well, I guess I have. Not that you've done everything that you want to do, but you've done everything that, you know, that you've had success in theater, that you've had success in theater, that you've had success in film.

You know, I have to tell you, I've been doing speaking gigs. I just came back from Wake Forest University and Melissa Harris Perry was a mediator. I did a 60-minute keynote and then I did a 30-minute Q&A with her. I absolutely love it. I really, really do. I love it.

You know, and I say this all the time. I think I told you the story, too, that I went to a friend's party and I happened to sit next to a life strategist. Yeah. And he said, you know, everybody fights for success. All it was, we just want to be successful

in whatever we do. And once we hit one success, we want to hit another. And then there's an emptiness that follows. And we always wonder where that emptiness is coming from because we missed the last step, which is significance. Right. And I realize that's why I love it. I go to these small towns and these universities with these great young women now.

And I feel like I'm, I have something to give them. it makes me feel like I'm leaving something bigger than myself that really will live longer after I have. I would love to do more of that because sometimes I feel like when I'm on a set, I'm working. I'm always just satisfied with my work. There are moments when I feel really, really happy with it

and when I feel really happy with it, a week or two later, I go, I could have done it. differently. I'm just glad that, you know, every actor thinks they're the only one that does that. Yeah, it's the only... Absolutely. But I never feel that way when I do the speaking gigs.

And like you said, you know, being a mentor sometimes is giving a word or two. But I just, there's something about sharing my story, man, that heals me. Heels that little girl, only picture I have when I was in junior first kindergarten, who was always hungry, always had bad hygiene, you know, lived in abject poverty, that I always, even when I walk out this door, I feel like that's who's walking out the door. And she's either happy or sad, but she's always guiding me. And that's when I feel like I'm really pleasing her when I do these speaking gigs. I feel like I'm pleasing that child in me that's still kind of hurting him.

that's how I feel. So I would love to do more of that. My husband talks about it today. He talks about it 50 minutes. He's like, that's what you need to do, V. That's what you need to focus on. That's what your life is going to be about. And so that's it.

Yeah. And I imagine that those experiences take that past, the past that you were talking about that most people wish that they could have a different one. And it imbues it with a different kind value, which is if I can share it, if I can own it. Well, there's a famous saying that says you're never too old to have a happy childhood. And I believe that.

I do believe that you can continue to heal that child, you know, even when you're older. I don't believe it's set in stone. I believe that's how time and life works, you know. Do you, first of all, that was sensational. Thank you. Do you have a self-inflicted wound? You can absolutely demur if a story hasn't come to you.

You know what I do? But it's, I wish I had a better story, but my husband says it all the time. He's still as angry about it today as he was back. I'm not good with being bored. Because I am shy, because I'm not really gregarious. When I get bored, I just, I don't know what I do. I don't go to a good place in my mind.

my head. So I was in Seville, Spain. I think I was shooting night and day, and I think I was on this, I shot it for two and a half months. I only worked for two days. Oh God, you were done. I was done. And so I went out to drink. I won't name the actors I went out to drink with. And I was so excited to be out that I went from zero to 50. Instead of just enjoying it, I started out eating some ham and drinking fabulous red wine and they kept topping it off. And I just loved it. I felt alive. And then I went to see some flamenco dancing, which is my favorite. I love it more than anything in the world. It's passionate. I went to see some flamenco dancing and I drank. I have no idea how many glasses of champagne lemonade with whipped cream on top. And then from there I went to a club and I just

was, I just went higher. My exuberance was through the roof. And I danced. I fell on the floor and I realized, I think I drank too much. And then I asked one of the actors, I got to get into a cab. I got to go home. Got to go back to the hotel. I went back to the hotel. And my husband called at that moment. Got on the phone with him and I said, as loud as I could, Sevilla Spain. Julius is

the most wonderful experience I've ever had in my life, in my life. And he said, V, are you drunk? And I said, oh, I've had a little bit to drink. But Julius, I am so happy. And that's the last thing. I remember. I passed out. I woke up. I was hugging the toilet. And the phone had lost all of its power. And my husband was en route to visit me. But I realized. I remember thinking now I think back on it. That was the most irresponsible thing that I could possibly do. My husband said, what were you thinking, Viola? You're by yourself.

You're drinking. You're doing all of that. But it was that one moment. I just, I needed some laughs. Watching you describe the story and actually looking at your face, it was clear that you had a wonderful time, you know, right up until like maybe the last three seconds of the night. But it seemed like you were just delighted. Like, I'm in Spain and I'm drinking one.

and I'm eating ham and like, why are we here? I got to get out of this isolation. If not to do these things, right? But now when I get out of isolation, I press the fast forward button a little bit, knowing, you know, what's going to come. But I think I probably had, I lost count. I think I had about 10 or 12 glasses of champagne

with whipped cream and lemonade. It sounds like it actually, like a pretty fun night. You get no judgment from me. Viola, this is such a joy. I really, I'm so grateful. It's a pleasure. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Yay. That was Viola Davis. I really could not have had enough time in the world to do her justice, but I was just thrilled, thrilled to be talking with her, thrilled to be in her presence, and really grateful for her time. She's just a pretty extraordinary lady. And I think, as I said earlier,

an example of just the importance of transcendent thinking, right, of seeing your life in a different way, of choosing to see your life in a different way. And I'm not talking about the gift, but if that works for you, great. I'm just talking about knowing that other things are possible other than what is in front of you right now, that all things can be possible. And I just encourage you, no matter how small of a mental shift that is for you, to choose to see your life in the way that you would like it to be rather than the way that it is. And that doesn't mean to be a Pollyanna. That doesn't mean to be ignorant or naive or blind to your own situation, but it does mean seeing that there is possibility beyond the thing that is immediately in front of you.

And I think that she's a perfect example of that. She's just fucking amazing. And yeah, I had Viola Davis on Girl and Guy, and that was pretty fucking incredible. You guys are the greatest. You are my army. You know what to do. Come follow me, friend me online. Come say hello. I know interactions are, like I said, fewer and farther between, but I am chasing my

own dreams, and I encourage you to chase yours every single day, incrementally or grandly, as you are able. And come say hi, come write me a letter. Come send me a note. It's never too early, but it will be too late at some point to send me a question for the awesome listener question show. occur at the end of 2016. Maybe you have a question about filmmaking. Maybe you want to know how the movie has gone. Come and ask me a question. And if you are a Kickstarter backer, I will be updating

you periodically on the progress of my film as much as it's humanly possible considering that it is going to be shooting in less than a week. And I am literally drowning in work. But it is wonderful. It is exciting. I am thrilled. I am beside myself. I am honored and incredibly humbled by all of the support that I've received from you and from everybody who backed the project, and I could not be more grateful. Get out there in the street and kick massive ass. You are my army. You are Legion, and I will talk to you on the very next one. Late. Girl on Guy is a production of Hot Machine, blowing shit up since 2009.