The New Yorker Radio Hour - Viola Davis on Playing Michelle Obama, and Finding Her Voice as an Actor

Episode Date: April 25, 2022

The Oscar-winning actor Viola Davis traces her career in Hollywood back to a single moment of inspiration from her childhood: watching Cicely Tyson star in the 1974 movie “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.” “I saw excellence and craft, and I saw transformation,” Davis tells David Remnick. “And more importantly, what it planted in me is that seed of—literally—I am not defined by the boundaries of my life.” In a new memoir, “Finding Me,” Davis writes of a difficult upbringing in Rhode Island, marked by poverty and an abusive father. She pursued her dream of attending the prestigious Juilliard School, but felt alienated by a white-focussed approach that left little room for her background or identity. She talks with Remnick about how she grew past these early challenges, the lingering impostor syndrome that many successful people experience, and how she prepared to play Michelle Obama in the series “The First Lady.” Plus, the cartoonist Liana Finck, a regular presence in The New Yorker, explains how a ride on the Long Island Rail Road gets her creative ideas flowing; she can work among people without anyone talking to her. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Viola Davis was already an accomplished stage actress when she appeared in the film Doubt in 2008. It was a breakthrough performance for her. She played the mother of a boy at a Catholic school. He's the school's only black student, and he might have been getting much too much attention from a priest. In one scene, she confronts the principal. a nun played by Merrill Streep.

As the critic Roger Ebert put it, Davis goes face to face with the preeminent film actress of this generation, and it's a confrontation of two equals that generates terrifying power. I believe this man is creating or may have already brought about an improper relationship with your son. I don't know. I know. I am right. Well, you've got to know something like that for sure when you don't.

What kind of mother are you? Excuse me, but you don't know enough about life to say a thing like that sister. I know enough. You know the rules maybe, but that don't cover it. I know what I won't accept. You accept what you got to accept and you work with it. This man is in my school. Well, he's got to be somewhere.

Maybe he's doing some good, too. After the boy. Or maybe some of them boys want to get caught. Davis has a kind of gravitas, an immense presence that's always marked her performances. And now she's playing Michelle Obama in the series The First Lady. It looks at the lives in the White House of Obama, Betty Ford, and Eleanor Roosevelt. This week, Viola Davis's memoir comes out, and it's called Finding Me. So I can't help but ask you this.

You get a call from your agent and says, Viola, we've got an offer for you to play Michelle Obama. What runs through your mind when you hear that? Do you run for the hills? I tried to run for the hills, but they ran into the hills and got me. They found you. They found me. But yeah, I mean, terrified. But, you know, at the same time, I saw it as an incredible challenge.

And during that time, it was right after how to get away with murder had ended and we were in the pandemic and definitely was having a weird existential crisis. And, you know, whenever you have those kind of crisis, I feel like you need to attack it boldly and radically. And so I saw that as a sign. Now, I don't know anything about acting. I've never acted except in one disastrous school play. But about the Obama's, I do. I wrote a book about Barack Obama's rise to the presidency. And I've had the experience when talking with Michelle Obama.

that she will indicate that really, for all the public attention and focus on them, that one really has no idea about the pressures of being that kind of public figure, much less the president and the first lady. That presents to you a real challenge of no ability, doesn't it? Yes, it does. And I really didn't have anything to go on except for artistic license and my imagination. but I think that's all anyone has to go on, which is why, you know, when you first start out acting,

that's why they tell you to study life. As you move through your life, you take note and you take stop in every circumstance. What was I thinking when my dad died? Who came to the funeral? What does the funeral look like? And you use that, you put it in your lexicon of information, then when you play any character, that becomes your research material.

That's why they tell you to study life. So when you're going to play a real person and a person that inhabits an enormous historical space, what do you fasten on to? Are there her mannerisms, her physicality, or something within you? What gave you some sense of something to hang? on to with Michelle Obama? You have to, first of all, you got to do all of it. That's just the way it is.

If you don't do all of it and rely on the makeup artist, a hairstylist, all of those things, then people will say that you haven't transformed. But with Michelle Obama, for me, this is a big deal for me, is her worth, her worth as a black woman, especially, that when she walks into a rural, room, this is a woman that does not feel invisible. So how does she take up space? That's the first thing I drew on because I'm not always that. I always say that if I weren't famous, I would be invisible to people, not to myself, but to people, yes. And so I found that to be very interesting that she grew up in the south side of Chicago.

She definitely came from the working class family, but she grew up with a mother and father who saw her and who saw her value. And then juxtaposed that with being a black woman, being the one person that sort of is always misunderstood, the least thought of, the least adored. and you marry those two things together and I think you got a good start and you have a good foundation.

Now, do you want to hear her reaction to your portrayal? I don't know if it's necessary. I mean, would I love to? Yeah, sure. Not necessarily. I don't, yeah, not necessarily. I mean, yes, no.

I haven't really thought about it because here's the thing. The biggest critic in the room is myself. The validation never really comes. That imposter syndrome is just biting at your heels constantly. And you just... It never goes away. I don't think.

And it's not just for actors. It's writers. It's for anyone. You know, there's a level of not believing the hype. And you shouldn't because it's like someone said about fame. It's like fattening a calf up for slaughter. So that's why I say that about Michelle Obama's endorsement or not endorsement is, I think my endorsement or not endorsement is the most powerful. Now, at the same time that this series is premiering, you've got a book out a memoir called Finding Me.

And in the book, you trace basically your entire love of acting back to one. one moment of inspiration, seeing Cessley Tyson in the 1974 movie, which I remember well, the autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. I want us to watch a scene from that movie first. Okay. I don't want to leave, Mama. I don't want us to separate. Yes, to be. I knew the day would come. You know, I never did tell you. But the first time you ever read to us, I knew that you was the one.

I won't hold you back, Ned. I won't hold you back. Mama. Mama. Make the craft. Tell me about that performance and what it meant to you when you were a kid. Oh, man. It was everything.

I saw excellence and craft and I saw transformation. I saw everything that is the magic of what we do. And more importantly, what it planted in me is that seed of literally, I am not defined by the boundaries of my life. That's what her performance did for me. You write so vividly about this in your book. You grew up in Central Falls, Rota Island, in extremely difficult circumstances. economically, your father struggled with alcohol and was abusive, and you faced pretty horrific racism at school and in the community. And it's amazing to me that this performance, this film,

somehow lifts you out of what seems like desperate circumstances and does something for you in a very, very assertive and positive way. Yes. I think that people just assume, that there's always someone in your face saying, you can do it. You could be whoever you want to be. And I'm going to guide you. I'm going to blaze a trail for you because I love you. I see you. And that's not the case. It's just not. I mean, you have whole populations of people out there who were never told that they could be anybody. who have never been encouraged. And for me, that performance was like, metaphorically speaking, was an encouragement. Someone planting a seed in me telling me that giving me permission to open up a whole different world for myself.

That's why it's very important to see someone who is a physical manifestation of your dream that looks like you. because otherwise there's no one throwing you a rope. In the memoir you write this, when I was acting, and this is your early acting, I felt everything. Every last receptor in my body was alive, 100% alive, and I was not hiding anything. Now, Viola, it sounds to me like it made you feel alive in a way that you clearly didn't before. Yeah, I mean, that's what, you know, I got into acting. I remember the big saying back in the day was theater heals the mind. And it does.

It's a sacred place. It's a sacred circle where you can share whatever is within you. You share your trauma. You share your past. You share anything that's going to make that character and that play and that narrative work. So therefore, you do what people aren't allowed to do in life. We're never allowed to. to connect like that. Not in a real, just brutal and joyful and transparent way. What kind of

arenas do we have to be able to do that? You make your way to Juilliard here in New York, and that's at that time, especially a very white institution. Tell me what it was like to be you landing at Juilliard back when. I forget what year it was in. That was. That was, 89 to 93. I was group 22. Well, it felt restrictive. It felt like who I was, I had to hide it, bury it, kill it, put it in a coffin, and just mourn its loss and sort of be recreated into what I say in the book, a perfect white actor. What were you burying? me my voice um my hair it's like pretend you're not seeing what you're seeing let me try to change my voice i don't know how to change anything else but put the wig on put any kind of makeup on so you can not see that i'm actually black girl biola from rhode island you had a moment when you're at Juilliard when you decide to take a trip to Gambia.

Yes. To West Africa. Yeah. Tell me about that trip and what did it give you that you weren't getting at Juilliard. What I got was that whatever is in me is the canvas for my art. That's what I got. That art in Africa is not separate from life. Everybody was an artist.

Art was a way for them to express, connect themselves with the world. I didn't know that. I thought art was something very academic outside of yourself. And in order to create it, you had to forget you until I ran into the Kenyala and all the rituals that I witnessed. Now, one of the most moving moments in the book is about the opening of August Wilson's play Seven Guitar's. This is on Broadway, and you eventually won your first Tony nomination for that.

And you described looking out over the crowd during the curtain call and you see your mother and father. Tell me about what that meant to you to see them in that audience at that show. That was probably the first time that it meant everything to me because my dad especially looked like he was going to fly. He really did.

And he was just definitely weeping for a man who, you know, had a second grade education and didn't learn how to read and write until he was 15. I think that what he was witnessing in me was an extension of his dream. dreams, unfulfilled dreams. You know what? I remember, this is back in the day when I really used to read comments online. I really stopped, which is a good thing. That was a good thing that you stopped. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But I remember reading, there was someone who was writing from Central Falls, and they said that my mom knows Viola's father and he would come to work every single day and all he would talk about is my daughter wants to be an actress. My daughter,

you know, my daughter wants to be an actress. And he was saying that when I was in high school. And I just felt, isn't that awesome that he was excited that his daughter wanted to be an actress? And there was no fame attached to it. There was just a knowledge that I gave birth to a young girl who wants to be somebody. And man, oh man, am I proud of that? And I'm going to shout it to the skies. You talked earlier about Imposter Center. Okay, but you've now got an Oscar, a Tony, an Emmy.

And in some cases, you've had truly historic performances. You were the first black women to win an Emmy for leading actress in a drama series. and does that change the way you think of yourself when you go home at night from the studio? Well, you know, Bray Brown talks about this, that the most vulnerable emotion is gratefulness and joy. Because the next moment is like, when is it going to be taken away? When are they going to find me out? When are they going to? So it's being in the moment and being able to celebrate is very, very vulnerable.

And the more success you have, the more. more frightening it is. Do you ever want to pull away from it? Oh, absolutely. What would you do? I don't know what I would do. I would most likely number one absolutely teach. But I think that here's the thing. It's the reality and the fantasy of anything. The highs of the winning, the Oscar, the Emmy, the Tony Awards, the money, all of that is there. But then life also keeps going. And this is not to sound ungrateful. This is to sound very honest. This is not it.

Getting to the height of your profession ain't it. Is it something to be celebrated? Is it something that I am very proud of myself for? Absolutely. But it is not a measure of success or meaning or purpose. What is? What is it the measure? It's significance. It's living a life that is tapped into something way bigger than you.

What I live for is I hope I really want people to feel less alone. Isolation and loneliness and lack of connection is literally a, it is a death knell. I try to do it with my work. I try to do it with my philanthropy. and I always target people that I know will be the most and feel the most alone. You said you might want to teach one day. What would you want to impart to young artists? One of the things that I would tell young actors is you got to use you. See, I think that what happens so much as we move through the world, even with social media,

no matter what, is we try to bogart other people's lives. It's sort of like going to plastic surgery and saying, I want Angelina Jolie's nose, and then maybe I want Scarlett Johansson's lips. You know, they do that with plastic surgery. But on a metaphoric level, I think that people do that. I think they pick and choose whose lives they want to emulate. And before they know it,

they become a Mr. Potato Head of, of other people's dreams, hopes, looks, values, everything. And they never ever focus on that inner voice within them, that mindfulness of just who you are. That's what I would impart with them. Because for me, I always want to see that one person walking across the screen that is going to be different from everybody else. And I think that that's how you do it. But you use you, always.

Viola Davis, thank you so much. Thank you, even though my lights went off. I was going to say, I didn't know what I'm going to. My lights are on a timer, so, yeah. I'm sure you'll get it fixed. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. Thank you.

Thank you. Viola Davis's memoir, Finding Me, is out this week. And you can see her in The First Lady on Showtime. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Now, we're going to close the show today with the cartoonist, Leanna Fink. Leanna is a regular and really beloved presence at The New Yorker, and she's written a number of books. Her new one is called Let There Be Light.

It's a graphic retelling of the book of Genesis featuring a female god, whom Liana calls a self-portrait. A few years ago, we spent the day with Leanna Fink as she worked on some drawings for the New York. She met our producer early in the morning at the terminal of the Long Island Railroad. That's the commuter train that runs east of New York City. Should we get on? Leanna was going just for the ride. I like to come up with New Yorker cartoons on the train. It's good because I don't have a fixed workspace, so I started working in fancy cafes.

and those are wonderful, but they are obnoxious. People are always eyeing your table because they want to sit at it. I can't stand when people talk to me when I'm working, but I love when they talk to each other. I don't like to be in a vacuum when I'm drawing. I think my ideal would really be to be a ghost and get to be around people all the time. Back to the floor, please.

I have a kind of sweet, non-threatening face, and I'm also not a very young woman, so if someone felt like talking to a stranger, I would be the first stranger they would go to. A train is better because people are mostly facing the same way. No one's going to look you in the eye. There you go. Change in that one.

The train that we're on is one of the less fancy Long Island Railroad trains. When you take a different train to Long Island, and you get a slightly fancier train with seats that go all the way up to the top of your head. But these seats, you can see people's hats. There's one person in every fifth seat of the train, I would say. It's after sunrise, but not very long after, and the sky is grayish and cloudy. And there's a 7-Eleven and an auto body shop and a lot of cars, and it's a type of bleak that I like.

It's maybe suburban sprawl. I'm always mean to start coming up with cartoons on the train, but sometimes I just send emails and look out the window, but I start to feel free in a certain way. I think one of the nice things about the train is that I can't really do perfectly finished work on it, I have to, like I can't make a Finnish cartoon. I have to just come up with ideas.

And I think, like, my favorite thing to do is just to think and to play. And on the train, I'm forced to just think and doodle. We're transferring at Babylon. We just got onto a fancier train with higher headrests and two stories and a bathroom. I printed out some An old batch of New Yorker cartoons that I liked a lot that didn't sell even though I thought they were really good that time

and I'm going to look at them and see if I can make them clear and maybe this time they'll sell So this one is a pine tree with an air freshener dangling from it that is shaped like a car That's good I don't need to fix that one up This is a hall of statues Oh, I guess they're busts on pillars that says

Hall of Life Size Pez Dispensers. This one doesn't bring me joy anymore. I don't think it's funny anymore. I don't think it ever was. This one is interesting. I think this one brings me joy. It says pigeon nest, and it's a nest on a tree that's made of garbage. I love pigeons.

And I think I need to think more about, like, maybe the reason this isn't a good cartoon yet is that it's on a tree. maybe a pigeon nest isn't on a tree. Like, I'll think about that. Here's a stupid one. It's a bird inside a gator's mouth, and the bird is saying, do you even floss?

I have really good dental hygiene. Birds are like the dentist's patron animal because they do clean the mouths of some kind of gator, alla or crocca. The gator does not look anatomically correct. I once saw an iguana, that got loose from its container on a train, and it was just walking really slowly down the train aisle,

and then its owner didn't realize that it had escaped, and everyone's just kind of like, like, what's that? It was really big. It's getting really beautiful outside. There's a ponds out the window with those things that look like wheat coming out of it. The houses are, they look like a fisherman might live in them. It looks like it's,

The town has been this way for a long time. I love that it doesn't look brand new. It's funny. I don't think I'm telling you accurate stuff about what I think about on the train because my drawing self, I think, is one self and my talking self is another self. And I just, like, can't access the drawing self when I'm talking. My drawing self is smart and savvy and knows exactly what she's doing. And my talking self is kind of a human impersonator.

Like in my drawing, I feel like I can be anyone. Like, I can channel all kinds of personalities and thoughts. And I don't tell myself what to draw. It just comes out. When I'm in the city, I feel like my social self, which isn't exactly my real self is just on high alert, and she's always expecting someone to talk to her. But on the train, you have no choices,

and no one's going to talk to you. and I get to just like put her on a shelf a bit more and then ideas come out. The drawing self gets to be alive again. It's almost time for us to get off. I always wish that I had a lot longer and that's a nice feeling. Leanna Fink riding the Long Island Railroad back in 2017. Her books include Passing for Human and her new book Let There Be Light, the real story of her creation.

I'm David Remnick, and I've got to share a sad piece of news. Sad for me and the radio hour team and sad for you if you've been listening to the show before. Since we launched, Stephen Valentino has been bringing his intelligence and his wit and his passion and his knowledge, even his craziness to the program each and every week, whether it was running around the Senate building during an impeachment hearing or interviewing national security officials about UFOs or the time that Stephen brought Patricia Mark to a sensory deprivation tank, and the microphone fell into a vat of salt solution. And there have been hundreds more adventures.

Stephen, the New Yorker Radio Hour truly won't be the same without you. Thank you for everything and the very best of luck to you. And thank you all for listening. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed

by Merrill Garbus of Tune Arts, with additional music by Alexis Quadrato. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.