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 Meryl Streep. As the critic Roger Ebert put it, Davis goes face to face with the preeminent film mattress of this generation and it's a confrontation of two equals that generates terrifying power.

Speaker 2: I believe this man is creating or may have already brought about an improper relation with your son.

Speaker 3: I don't know.

Speaker 2: I know, I am right.

Speaker 3: Well, you got to know something like that for sure when you don't.

Speaker 2: What kind of mother are you?

Speaker 3: Excuse me, but you don't know enough about life to say a thing like this.

Speaker 2: I know enough.

Speaker 3: You know the rules maybe, but that don't cover.

Speaker 2: I know what I want.

Speaker 3: You accept what you got to accept and you work with it.

Speaker 2: This man is in my school.

Speaker 3: Well, he's got to be somewhere. Maybe he's doing some good too.

Speaker 2: After the boys--

Speaker 3: Maybe some of the boys want to get caught.

David Remnick: Davis has a kind of gravitas and immense presence that's always marked her performances. and now she's playing Michelle Obama in this series, The First Lady. It looks at the lives in the White House of Obama, Betty Ford and Eleanor Roosevelt. This week Viola Davis' memoir comes out and it's called, Finding Me. 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?

Viola Davis: I tried to run for the Hills, but they ran into the Hills and got me.

[laughter]

David Remnick: They found you.

Viola Davis: They found me, but I'm terrified, but at the same time 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. Whenever you have those kind of crises, I feel like you need to attack it boldly and radically and so I saw that as a sign.

David Remnick: [chuckles] 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, 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?

Viola Davis: Yes, it does. I really didn't have anything to go on except for our artistic license and my imagination, but I think that's all anyone has to go on which is why 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 stock in every circumstance, "What was I thinking when my dad died, who came to the funeral, what does a funeral look like?" 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.

David Remnick: When you're going to play a real person and a person that inhabits an enormous historical space, what do you fasten onto? Are there her mannerisms, her physicality or something within you? What gave you some sense of something to hang onto with Michelle Obama?

Viola Davis: 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 artists, the hair stylists, 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 room, this is a woman that does not feel invisible. 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, [laughs] I would be invisible to people, not to myself, but to people yes. I found that to be very interesting that she grew up in south side of Chicago.

She definitely came from a working-class family, but she grew up with a mother and father who saw her and who saw her value. Then juxtapose that with being a Black woman, being the one person that 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.

David Remnick: Now, do you want to hear her reaction to your portrayal?

Viola Davis: I don't know if it's necessary. Would I love to? Yes, sure, not necessarily. Not necessarily. Yes, no, I haven't really thought about it.

[laughter]

Viola Davis: Because you know the thing, the biggest critic in the room is myself. The validation never really comes, that impostor syndrome is just biting at your heels constantly. You just--

David Remnick: It never goes away.

Viola Davis: I don't think, and it's not just for actors, it's writers, it's for doc, it's for anyone, 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.

[laughter]

Viola Davis: 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.

David Remnick: Now at the same time that this series is premiering, you've got a book out, a memoir called Finding Me. In the book you trace basically your entire love of acting back to one moment of inspiration, seeing Cecily 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.

Viola Davis: Okay.

[music]

Speaker 5: I don't want to leave mama. I don't want us to separate.

Speaker 6: I have to be. I knew the day would come. I never did tell you, but the first time you ever read to us, I knew that you was the one. I don't hold you back [unintelligible 00:07:51] I won't hold you back.

Speaker 5: Mama, mama, mama.

Speaker 6: [unintelligible 00:08:01]

[music]

Speaker 6: Think about it.

David Remnick: Tell me about that performance and what it meant to you when you were a kid.

Viola Davis: 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. 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.

David Remnick: Now, you write so vividly about this in your book. You grew up in Central Falls, Rhode 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. 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.

Viola Davis: 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." That's not the case, it's just not. You have whole populations of people out there who were never told that they could be anybody, who have never been encouraged. For me, that performance metaphorically speaking was an encouragement. Someone planting a seed in me 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.

David Remnick: 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. Viola, it sounds to me like it made you feel alive in a way that you clearly didn't before.

Viola Davis: 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. Therefore you do what people aren't allowed to do in life. We're never allowed to connect like that. Not in a real, just brutal and joyful and transparent way. What arenas do we have to be able to do that?

David Remnick: You make your way to Juilliard here in New York. 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.

Viola Davis: That was '89 to '93. I was group 22. 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 be recreated into what I say in the book, a perfect white actor.

David Remnick: What were you burying?

Viola Davis: Me, my voice, 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 makeup on so you can not see that I'm actually Black girl Viola from Rhode Island.

David Remnick: You had a moment when you're a Juilliard when you decide to take a trip to Gambia, to west Africa. Tell me about that trip and what did it give you that you weren't getting at Juilliard?

Viola Davis: 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 away for them to express, connect themselves with the world. I didn't know that. I thought art was something very academic outside of yourself. In order to create it, you had to forget you until I ran into the [unintelligible 00:13:39] and all the rituals and I witnessed.

David Remnick: One of the most moving moments in the book is about the opening of August Wilson's play, Seven Guitars. This is on Broadway and you eventually won your first Tony nomination for that. You describe 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.

Viola Davis: 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. He was just definitely weeping for a man who 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 up his 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.

David Remnick: That was a good thing that you stopped.

Viola Davis: Exactly. 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. All he would talk about is my daughter wants to be an actress. 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? I'm going to shout it to the skies.

David Remnick: You talked earlier about imposter syndrome, but you've now got an Oscar, a Tony, an Emmy. In some cases you've had truly historic performances. You were the first Black woman to win an Emmy for leading actress in a drama series. Does that change the way you think of yourself when you go home at night from the studio?

Viola Davis: Brene Brown talks about this that the most vulnerable emotion is gratefulness and joy because the next moment is, when is it going to be taken away? When are they going to find me out? It's being in the moment and being able to celebrate is very, very vulnerable. The more success you have, the more frightening it is.

David Remnick: Do you ever want to pull away from it?

Viola Davis: Oh, absolutely.

David Remnick: What would you do?

Viola Davis: I don't know what I would do. I would most likely number one, absolutely teach. 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. 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.

David Remnick: What is it, the measure?

Viola Davis: 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 death knell. I try to do it with my work. I try to do it with my philanthropy. I always target people that I know will be the most and feel the most alone.

David Remnick: What do you want? You said you might want to teach one day. What would you want to impart to young artists?

Viola Davis: One of the things that I would tell young actors is you got to use you. I think that what happens so much as we move through the world even with social media, no matter what is we try to [unintelligible 00:18:45] other people's lives. It's like going to plastic surgery and saying, "I want Angelina Jolie's nose. Then maybe I want Scholar Johansen's lips." 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. Before they know it, they become a Mr. Potato head of other people's dreams, hopes, looks, values, everything.

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. I think that that's how you do it. You use you always.

David Remnick: Viola Davis, thank you so much.

Viola Davis: Thank you even though my lights went off.

David Remnick: I was going to say, [laughs] didn't know what [crosstalk]

Viola Davis: My lights are on a timer.

David Remnick: I'm sure you'll get it fixed. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time.

Viola Davis: Thank you.

David Remnick: Viola Davis' memoir, Finding Me is out this week and you can see her in The First Lady on showtime.

[00:20:30] [END OF AUDIO]

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.