"6-year-old Viola always wanted to beat up the boys." Viola Davis takes a walk down memory lane as she rewatches scenes from her classic works including 'The Woman King,' 'Doubt,' 'How to Get Away with Murder,' 'Fences,' 'Air,' 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom,' and 'G20.' Viola dishes on getting into shape for 'The Woman King, working alongside Meryl Streep for 'Doubt,' and so much more.Viola Davis stars in G20, available globally on Prime Video on April 10, 2025http://bit.ly/WatchMorePrimeVideoDirector: Jameer PondDirector of Photography: AJ YoungEditor: Daniel Finn; Daniel HurwitzTalent: Viola DavisProducer: Emebeit BeyeneProduction Manager: Andressa PelachiProduction Coordinator: Elizabeth HymesTalent Booker: Meredith Judkins; Paige Garbarini (on set)Camera Operator: Brooke MuellerAudio Engineer: Glo MarieProduction Assistant: Shanti Cuizon-Burden; Brock SpitaelsPost Production Supervisor: Christian OlguinSupervising Editor: Christina MankellowAdditional Editor: Jason MaliziaAssistant Editor: Andy Morell
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Every time people see something big on screen, they always say it's overacting.
00:04I think that's bull. It's not. There's some big moments in life. Sorry, there are.
00:09Hi, I'm Viola Davis, and I'll be looking at a few scenes from my career.
00:30They would have maybe eight, nine dudes in the gym, and then we would choreograph fight scenes where I would have to take all of them down.
00:50That was the training for three months, five hours a day, an hour of weight training, half an hour of running, 10.0 on the treadmill.
01:01Get in the car and go for three hours, sometimes three and a half hours of hand-to-hand combat, little jujitsu.
01:08I felt like I created a body that wasn't just a sort of amalgamation of male desirability, but a body that was fit to take care of myself.
01:27It gave me a confidence. Let me tell you something, the leather sort of shield that I wore in the movie.
01:33Now, I don't walk around like that in my life. I've never walked around, and I'm 57 years old in this, and then my stomach out and all of that.
01:42I walked with confidence on that set, and not because I felt like I look good. I felt the confidence of strength.
01:51It never occurred to me as a girl that I could be strong until I did this movie.
01:57There is a narrative with women that in order to be feminine, in order to be women, you sort of have to be a little weak.
02:07And I was in this world where it was about being capable, being a warrior.
02:16It awakened autonomy and agency.
02:28I remember we did that scene so many times because she, it's not because, but she runs off, and she's about 20 years younger than I am.
02:37So she ran, she runs off. She ran so fast. I would run after her, and I think there was a couple of takes.
02:44I tripped. I skinned my knee. There was blood. I wiped myself off. I got back up.
02:52The swimming, now I'm not really a swimmer. I can't believe I was swimming in this.
02:58We even had to train, train for swimming by taking bricks and going down into a pool that must have been 15 feet deep.
03:06Yeah, that was that. It was badass.
03:15I am concerned about the relationship between Father Flynn and your son.
03:20You don't say concerned. What do you mean concerned?
03:23That it may not be right.
03:27Mrs. Miller was this woman, of course, who has a son in Catholic school, black, and he could be gay.
03:36This priest has taken a liking to him, and has become his mentor.
03:40I mean, there's nothing so far-fetched with that that it seems like it's not realistic.
03:47I didn't understand why she would leave him there.
03:50Because I didn't understand this character is why I wrote a 100-page biography.
03:55And I remember I kept writing and writing and writing.
03:58And that's what you do as an actor.
03:59That's what they say.
04:00You can't arm yourself with enough information.
04:03So I kept writing and writing and writing until someone said,
04:06maybe she didn't have a choice.
04:08And it was like, pow.
04:10What if she's in a situation at home?
04:13Maybe it's a little abusive.
04:14She's a woman in 1964.
04:16She has no other means to protect her son.
04:19And then, all of a sudden, I understood her.
04:21That if this is the only place where my son could survive,
04:25then why not keep him exactly where he is with a man who at least loves him?
04:31So it took me 100 pages to find that little small truth.
04:36This man is in my school.
04:37Well, he's gotta be somewhere.
04:38Maybe he's doing some good, too.
04:39He is after the boys.
04:40Well, maybe some of them boys wanna get caught.
04:45Listen, I was terrified working with Meryl Streep.
04:49I mean, I know she would hate hearing me say that.
04:52She is not that human being or actor at all.
04:55But I said, I gotta step up.
04:57And we shot this in two weeks.
05:00This one scene that takes, I don't know, eight minutes?
05:03And then we actually reshot it again for another week.
05:08That also is what motivated 100 pages, because I said,
05:11if she's great, I gotta be just as good,
05:14because she ain't not gonna make me look bad.
05:27I need for a character to be a human being.
05:38I don't know any way into acting if someone is not a human being.
05:43If I did not take the makeup off, then I thought that for the next six,
05:49five, ten years that this show is on,
05:52it's gonna constantly be about me masking my age,
05:56about me trying to be pretty,
05:58about just ignoring the fact that I don't know how to walk in heels.
06:02And I just felt like, what if you took that wig off,
06:06and they had to deal with that black woman
06:09who was underneath the eyelashes and the makeup?
06:14Then it would be, they would have to write for her.
06:18And I have never seen her.
06:21And to a certain extent, I think that's a huge reason
06:24why I've never seen myself.
06:26Miss Tyson said that when she was the first black woman on network TV,
06:30she said she would get a boatload,
06:32and she kept saying that word, boatload of mail,
06:35every single week from black people saying,
06:38how dare you do that?
06:40Why did you have them, you know, use your natural hair?
06:46I mean, the shame of blackness came from us.
06:50That is why people lean into art.
06:54It's truth.
06:55It's seeing yourself.
06:56It's feeling less alone.
06:58And it's the bravery to be able to do that.
07:02And this is my chance to redefine what it meant to be a leading lady,
07:06what it meant to be black, what it meant to be sexual,
07:10what it meant to be all of that.
07:11This was my chance to do that.
07:13It's not easy for me to admit that I've been standing in the same place for 18 years.
07:25Well, I've been standing with you.
07:27I've been right here with you, Troy.
07:29I got a life too.
07:31I gave 18 years of my life to stand in the same spot as you.
07:35What I remember about Denzel is him giving me permission to go there.
07:40The problem I had with this at first was I said, it's such a, because it's a rant.
07:46It's a huge, long monologue.
07:48And she is definitely, her whole life has been, you know, ripped away from her.
07:54So I was like, it's too big for her.
07:57It's too big for the screen.
07:59And he was like, oh, okay, let's do it.
08:02And then I think we started, we did this, by the way, I forgot, over a dozen times.
08:09So I did it.
08:11And he was like, it's not too big to me.
08:14I took all my feelings, my wants and needs and dreams, and I buried them inside you.
08:20I planted a seed and watched and prayed over.
08:22I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom.
08:25For film, everything is small.
08:27The camera's right there, whatever.
08:29But there are some moments in life that if you saw them, they're big moments.
08:36What this moment was, was one of those moments where a woman was literally like a feral dog,
08:45who literally was getting her life ripped from underneath her.
08:49It was not a tiny movie moment.
08:52It was likened to a Greek tragedy.
08:54Every time people see something big on screen, they always say it's overacting.
08:58I think that's bull.
08:59It's not.
09:00There's some big moments in life.
09:02Sorry, there are.
09:03He is the best actor's director, by the way, that's out there.
09:14Michael will get a percentage of the revenue of the sale of each shoe that is sold.
09:19I'm sorry?
09:23Not all Nike shoes, just the ones with his name on them.
09:26Phone scenes are horrific.
09:28They're absolutely horrific.
09:30I'm just talking.
09:31I'm talking.
09:32I'm not thinking about anything else.
09:35This phone scene had a whole arc to it.
09:39And I don't think that I would have gotten this if Matt were not on the phone.
09:44When someone is talking on the phone and everything they're saying is bullshit to you.
09:53So you put the phone down and you may put it on mute.
09:56I may say something to someone in the room saying,
09:58can you believe what he's saying?
10:00It's some bullshit.
10:01Those moments that nobody wants to cop to.
10:05I had an opportunity to do even that,
10:07which informed the scene in a whole different way.
10:10when I take the phone away from my ear and go,
10:12okay, I'm going to let him say whatever he wants to say.
10:15Because at the end of it, I'm going to get what the hell I want.
10:19This scene, it was the most frightening of it all.
10:42Because it was a performance within a performance.
10:45The only thing I remember is being terrified.
10:48And I remember Chadwick in this scene because he was so dedicated to learning the trumpet.
10:54And he was so specific with it, like day and night.
10:58And so I remember in this that I felt like I had to step up.
11:02Because he was stealing the spotlight.
11:04That's what was happening in the scene.
11:06You know, probably mirroring life.
11:10You know, you know, you know.
11:16Very little information about her.
11:18Like a lot of black people from this time period.
11:22She's described as having a mouth full of gold teeth.
11:26And when she sang in the Chitlin circuit shows under the hot lights,
11:31her makeup would melt like grease paint.
11:35They described her as ugly.
11:36I think that when people hear ugly and someone describing how someone looks,
11:42then they're so offended that they do the opposite with their acting.
11:46They say, I don't care if you said she was ugly.
11:48I'm going to make her beautiful.
11:50But then she no longer becomes who she is.
11:54For me, what intrigued me about Ma Rainey was a chance to honor her exactly as who she was.
12:01And very often I don't get to play that.
12:11Look like they're guarding the doors more than us.
12:13Ah, ridiculous.
12:14It's just ridiculous.
12:15I'm meant to be bagging down those doors by now.
12:18What about the cat team?
12:20That first explosion came from the east wing in that honeymoon suite.
12:24If I was taking down this party, that cat team would be my primary target.
12:28I like this scene because I like it when you don't see something coming.
12:35This scene starts, she's at the G20 summit.
12:38The whole thing is she wants other leaders to be on board with this together plan.
12:44She is being the negotiator.
12:46She is the leader of the free world basically.
12:49And then this happens.
12:52And I remember even shooting this scene where I was like, oh my God.
12:56Because I'm in the red dress.
12:58Everything is happening.
12:59All of a sudden I get to play the president who is challenged with this whole other area
13:06of having to step up as a leader.
13:08Some of these scenes we choreographed a week before, a day before.
13:13I think the most challenging choreography was the elevator scene.
13:17That elevator scene was hard only because it was in close confines.
13:20It was, you know, falling down the elevator shaft.
13:23And I love fight scenes.
13:27Six year old Viola loves fight scenes.
13:29Six year old Viola always wanted to beat up the boys.
13:32I'm not going to lie.
13:33I mean, if you read my book, I was a mischievous kid and I'm being nice.
13:39Thank you, Vanity Fair, and thank you everyone for watching.