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Viola Davis (born August 11, 1965) is an American actress. Known primarily as a stage actress, Davis won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play and a Drama Desk Award for her role in King Hedley II (2001). She won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for her role in the 2010 production of Fences. She won a second Drama Desk Award for Intimate Apparel (2004). She most recently is in the media for her role as a maid in The Help.
Her films include Traffic (2000), Antwone Fisher (2002), and Solaris (2002). Her eight-minute-long performance in the film adaptation of John Patrick Shanley‘s Doubt (2008) garnered several honors, including a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Actress Viola Davis says she had some real trepidation over whether to accept the role of maid Aibileen Clark in the new drama “The Help.”
The movie is based on Kathryn Stockett’s best-seller about African-American maids working for and often raising the children of white families in the ’60s, and the young white writer who documents their stories.
“I knew I was playing a maid in 2010 (when the movie was shot) in a movie called ‘The Help’ written by a white woman and directed by a white director,” says Davis. “I felt a huge responsibility as an actor, and felt I would be attacked by the black community” if she played a “mammy” role.
Viola Davis felt that way right up until the time she accepted the role but says: “The one thing I could not shake was the fact that I couldn’t deny I loved who Aibileen was. It was a chance for me to create a character.”
Davis says she has already felt some backlash from the black community but has tried not to let it bother her.
“I find when you seek the approval of other people, you’re putting your joy in someone else’s hands, and I can’t do that,” she says. “I’ve had backlash playing a serial killer on ‘Law & Order: Criminal Intent.’ Anthony Hopkins didn’t, but I did. I have to follow my heart at the end of the day.
“The standard of excellence I want from my work will speak louder than anything else and will and can influence a generation of young actors and actresses of color.”
Davis is a big fan of author Stockett’s work in “The Help,” though she initially had reservations about the book, as well.
“Like anything dealing with race, nobody wants to talk about it,” Davis says. “Nobody wanted to tell me a white woman wrote the book, like saying it’s admitting something bigger than what it is. So I opened the book and turned it over and said, ‘What? A white woman wrote it, and it’s not going to be good.’
“(Stockett) did an extraordinary job. Usually with writers, they use less of an imagination with the characters of color. The black character is usually the facilitator, and they don’t develop beyond that. But (Stockett) didn’t do that, and that’s a testament to her skills that she really developed them as people. I knew exactly who they were.”
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