Finding Me: A Memoir
by Viola Davis
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Who am I? I was quiet, and once again that indestructible memory hit me. Then I just blurted it out. “I’m the little girl who would run after school every day in third grade because these boys hated me because I was . . . not pretty. Because I was . . . Black.”
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He stood staring at my mom, wanting to swing again. My dad never looked at me. He kept his hand gripped on the glass, staring at my mom. His eyes bloodshot wanting so bad to hit her again. I screamed, “Give it to me!” Screaming as if the louder I became the more my fear would be released. And he gave me the glass and walked away. I took the glass and hid it, and my body felt like I had just been beaten up or ran thirty miles.
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I told Deloris I was sorry that happened to her and we didn’t help her. She said, “That’s okay, Viola. That was the day I decided to be a teacher. It devastated me so much that I didn’t want another kid to go through what I went through.”
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It was arduous listening and watching white guest actors perform, white playwrights coming in to speak, white projects, white characters, a European approach to the work, speech, voice, movement. Everyone was geared toward molding and shaping you into a perfect white actor. The unspoken language was that they set the standard. That they’re better. I’m a dark-skinned Black actress with a deep voice. No matter how much I adhere to the training, when I walk out into the world I will be seen as a dark-skinned Black woman with a deep voice. Hell, when I got out there in the world, I would be called for jobs based on . . . me. I had to make peace with that. And I admit, there are some classical playwrights and contemporary ones that I never want to perform anyway!
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My agent Mark said to me, “Viola, you have great parents.” His statement shocked me. I said, “I do?” He said, “Yes. They are great.” I asked him why he said that. He said, “I’ve been in this business a while and have seen a lot of stage parents. It becomes more about them and not about their kids. Your parents are not that way at all. They just want to see you fly. They’re just happy for you.” It was a seed planted that made me look at my parents in a completely different light. It woke me up.
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We shot the interior of the scene first. No words describe working with a great actor. You don’t ever have to worry about her not passing you the ball. You don’t ever have to worry about her giving it her all when she’s on camera. Meryl was 100 percent there with me. The exterior part of the scene took most of the time because it kept raining. It would stop and we would do the scene again. While it rained, we would sit together. She’d always say, “Oh, come sit with me. Let’s talk. Sit with me.”
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My other issue was when Aibileen and the others were offered money and we refused it because we were so honorable; we felt it was more important for us to tell the story than take the money. I disagree. We would have taken the money. Being honorable is fantasy. Survival and how it brings out our nature is human.
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I just never know how to make a choice in this scene and how to respond to Cory’s statement and his pain. When I did it onstage, I was not a mother yet, but when we filmed Fences I was. In the film it was my chance to hit that final scene. The complexity of healing and forgiveness suddenly materialized for me. And I realized that your depth of understanding of yourself is equal to the depth of understanding a character. We are after all observers of life.
