IMAGE – Axelle/Bauer-Griffin, Getty Images
Viola Davis hopes to elevate storytelling for people of color – She also wants her life to matter. She spoke about this as she picked up the Women In Motion award at the Cannes Film Festival
As a little chocolate girl that grew up in Central Falls, Rhode Island in abject poverty, with a certain level of poverty, I always wanted my life to matter. I wanted to leave this earth with a big fat hole in it and I felt the way to do that was to become an actress, but now that I’ve progressed in my career, what I’ve realized is that I want to elevate storytelling for people of color.”
Speaking about the award, she added –
It means an acknowledgement of my legacy, which is what I want to shift the narrative of women of color to. It’s no longer acceptable for us to be defined by men, defined by any other structure other than ourselves, and it became obvious to me as I was progression in my career that I had to be the change that I wanted to see, and that why we started this. I want to see black women for the beautiful complicated beings that they are.”
She revealed recently that a director she’d known for over a decade once mistakenly called her by his maid’s name.
“I had a director who did that to me. He said, ‘Louise!’ I knew him for 10 years and he called me Louise and I find out that it’s because his maid’s name is Louise.
