Come Now Blackfish 05/08/2025

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https://www.tumblr.com/richardmurrayhumblr/782947006872174592/come-now-blackfish-by-richard-murray

IN AMENDMENT

Viola Davis on Juilliard
site
https://talkeasypod.com/viola/

Video Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuHydabht-w

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Transcript

0:00 [Music] this is Talk Easy I'm Sam 0:05 Fosso Welcome to the show 0:12 Biola Davis Yes Thank you for being here Thank you Thank you for having me We're in the Actor's Equity Building Oh my 0:19 goodness This is where I would come every year to do my taxes But the reason 0:24 why I came to the Actor's Equity Building is they would do your taxes for free Oh really Mhm So I'd get here at 0:31 4:00 in the morning sleep in front of that damn door get my taxes done and mail it You got your actor's equity card 0:38 after doing Joe Turner's Come and Gone right That's right I became a professional actress Well I think you 0:44 were 23 at the time 23 Okay So The Building has good but mostly sleepy 0:50 memories is what I'm hearing So let's try to create a a a better more lasting memory Okay Okay Today around your last 0:58 big action hero film The Woman King Yes You said the story quote resuscitated 1:05 you I'm dark-skinned I have a deep voice And my whole life I've been told that 1:10 I'm too strong too masculine We redefine what it means to be feminine in the 1:15 Woman King And it liberated me Is it from that liberation that you felt well the only 1:24 role to play after the woman king is the president of the United States 1:30 It wasn't intentional I think that people see your career so much as intentional and what that would mean is 1:37 that you have so much control over your work and there are there are no words to 1:44 describe the business of acting 1% of actors make $50,000 a year or more and 1:50 usually those are background actors and only 0.04% of actors are famous You don't get 1:56 control over your material Every once in a while you have an actor out there maybe the Leonado DiCaprios who could go 2:03 out there and say "I want to work with this director." But usually with the 2:08 rest of us it's you're on a wing and a prayer right But the thing about this 2:14 profession because there's so much deprivation you always want to figure 2:20 out what to do in order to work So a lot of people copy everyone else's hairstyle 2:26 They copy everyone else's body You know all the women out there trying to lose weight Maybe they get plastic surgery 2:34 Who knows But very few people sort of relish in exactly who they are M And do 2:40 you relish in that I have to I don't know how to be anyone else And yes was I 2:46 liberated from everything that makes you or defines you as feminine Yes for the 2:51 woman king But I've been liberated by everything that that define me as being 2:56 anything I feel like I define me totally 3:02 I don't want any limits on me my sexuality um my sexiness in terms of my sexuality 3:09 my voice what I can or can't do at what age I refuse to um limit myself I think 3:17 that's where progressiveness comes in That person who's willing to step out on faith and do what it is that they're 3:23 called to do Yeah You said that in making this movie that not every film I 3:28 make has to win an Academy Award Oh God Yes But are you sure the Academy should 3:34 overlook the scene where you shoot someone in the foot Punch him in the face all while in 3:41 a red dress Let me tell you something I do need an award for that damn red dress Listen you 3:48 know what the award That's the last joke question I'll ask you No you got we got to have some laughs I mean this is this 3:55 has been a I mean that's one of the reasons why I did the movie too I want people to be able to get together with 4:01 their families at home and watch the movie in the same way they commit to Air 4:06 Force One Die Hard um Sigourney Weaver and Alien I want them to commit to me 4:13 And I don't think that that is a bad thing I don't think that you know every 4:18 movie I make has to make a grand statement even I think sometimes it needs to just be pure entertainment Well 4:25 I was thoroughly entertained You made this film uh through your production company Yes And and the mission 4:32 statement of the company is to quote change the landscape It's hard for people to see us beyond the narratives 4:38 that are didactic We're trying to change that So tell me how does G20 fit into 4:44 that mission statement What what what does change look like to you and your production Because first of all because 4:50 I'm the lead in a movie Yeah I'm 59 years old and I play the president of the United States with my body my skin 4:56 tone my face and the people in the movie reflect the audience but I'm the center 5:03 of the narrative Then you have Ramon Rodriguez You have Patricia Rian who is 5:08 Mexican uh Guadalajara who's directing it It reflects the audience you know so 5:15 often I don't think that we understand It's like I did a movie one time years 5:21 ago and my husband we went to see it in the movie theater He said "You were the only black person in that town Even when 5:28 we looked in the background in the hardware store that you were at there was no one black brown or nothing." But 5:34 a lot of times movies do not reflect the world 5:40 And you know once I got to a certain level then I needed to be the change 5:46 that I wanted to see You know it's like that saying you know once you're free it's your job to free others And there 5:54 is no that closet in the studios filled with scripts for young African-American 6:02 actresses for for older African-American actresses for any actress of color 6:08 they're they're not there And so if you don't create them then what you have is 6:14 maybe actresses who do one really great movie and then they sit around for another 6:20 year or two until maybe they find something else I don't think that people 6:26 understand the deprivation there is in material And it's the material that pops 6:32 you So in this scene that people are about to hear your character President Sutton 6:39 is negotiating with a group of attackers attempting to destabilize the world economy and corner the market on 6:45 cryptocurrency Yeah Odd timing for us to the scene 6:51 Your character speaks first Why would a mercenary take on the G20 What Wait you 6:59 you call me a mercenary lady You fought a war over gasoline I served my country 7:04 just as I serve it now Yeah Blindly You serve it blindly You were used by them then and they're using you now So you 7:11 feel used That's why you terrorize a world and crash markets We want to switch to cryptocurrency So they 7:17 [ __ ] This isn't about crypto You want to crash currencies and get rich 7:22 This seems like something personal What What are you after I'm after you Like we 7:28 said in D20 you play the president and you're the star of the film Yeah Which means like Harrison Ford Yeah In Air 7:36 Force One you were number one on the call sheet Yes But before you went into the film in the middle of the pandemic 7:44 as you began writing your memoir you said in one interview "I had to press a reset button in my life I had a crisis 7:51 of meaning in 2020 You get to number one and that's your life Once I got there it 7:58 felt like somebody lied to me Yeah What does a crisis of meaning look like for 8:05 Viola Davis A crisis of meaning for Viola Davis I think is probably what it 8:10 looks like to everyone When you set out on the path to become something so you think okay I'm 8:18 going to become a famous actress So that's the goal That's the vision All 8:23 right And then you hit it and they realize that's just not it There is a 8:29 disillusionment that happens There's an emptiness that happens And to be perfectly honest there's an isolation 8:36 and a loneliness that happens And that happened to you Oh totally And it's I I 8:41 have to tell you it sort of hit during after the help but really it really um 8:47 reared its ugly head during How to Get Away with Murder Because here's the thing Whatever goal you set in life is 8:54 just the cosmic carrot to what life is supposed to be about The cosmic carrot 9:00 is the goal but really truly it's the journey and who you're becoming It's a 9:06 quote that I've been using again and again during this whole publicity tour which is your purpose in life is not 9:13 what you do It's what happens to people when you do what you do That's it I mean 9:20 I always tell people even now when you push your kid and you want your kid to be the top of the top and the best of 9:26 the best you have to know invest some money in mental health treatment because 9:31 they're going to need it Because what what's what's going to happen is when they are not that thing all the time if 9:39 they're not accomplishing something all the time they don't they're not going to know how to sit with themselves Mhm And 9:45 it's who you are that's more important than what you do That was my big 9:51 There's a Stevie Wonder song Yeah Where he's saying "Show me how to do like you." Yeah Show me how to do it Yeah I 9:59 stole that from Alice Walker She opens that She opens The Color Purple with that quote And it took me the longest 10:06 time to realize that And I realized it was the whole relationship between Sely and Suge Avery where Suge Avery taught 10:14 Sely how to love herself basically taught her how to you know find home And 10:22 I think that's it sounds Kumbaya Listen the show 10:27 is called Talk Easy Yes Kumbaya is just part of the equation Yeah So you do not 10:33 need to apologize for Kumbaya But this book that you wrote Finding Me did feel 10:38 like does feel like an invitation and a gift and an offering to discover and 10:45 rediscover your younger self Yeah And so I want to understand that young version 10:51 of you a little bit Like you you born in 1965 Yep You're delivered by your 10:56 grandmother in her home on the Singleton Plantation in St Matthews South Carolina 11:02 Yes As the fifth of six children most of your family then relocates to uh Central 11:08 Falls Rhode Island Y a small mill town that was close to two racetracks that 11:14 your father worked at Mhm You were also the first African-American family to live in that community But come the age 11:22 of five you meet your older sister Diane for the first time She was maybe 9 years 11:28 old I think Y when she enters the bathroom with you How does that scene unfold as we sit 11:35 here right now How do you see it You know what How I see it now was that was 11:43 the first seed of curiosity which is a very very powerful 11:48 word to me And the curiosity was at 5 years old It was one of the few times we 11:54 had hot water So I was taking a bath and she all I heard was a voice that said "I 11:59 want to see my baby sister I want to see my baby sister And I got out of the bathtub and she stared at me and she 12:07 looked around the house which was we grew up extremely poor and she said the one 12:15 phrase that opened my world which is what do you want to be viola 12:24 And I call that the call to adventure M you know I I think that a lot of people 12:31 feel like the call to adventure is I have this great opportunity for you to work you know somewhere and make a lot 12:37 of money and blah blah blah blah blah but the call to adventure for me was 12:42 what do I want to become who do I want to become and is that exactly what the 12:48 journey should be I didn't know that I mean of course I was 5 years old at the time but I don't 12:56 think that it matters how old you are I think once the seed is planted it's 13:01 planted Why do you think she asked you that How do you think she knew to plant the seed They say that every hero and 13:09 hero I but I what I mean by hero is someone Joseph Campbell is anyone who 13:14 wants to slay their demons in life That's anybody So that could be any of us Any of us because she didn't want to 13:21 be poor She didn't want to It's it's it's very simple She grew up even um at Singleton 13:28 Plantation for many many years and grew up in segregated schools where she was beaten Had no indoor bathroom No indoor 13:35 bathroom And saw a bathroom for the first time when she was right before she came to live with us and she couldn't 13:42 believe it Her jaw dropped because she saw the possibilities in life And I mean 13:49 I think it would be a better question for her But what she did was she passed the baton on to me unknowingly You've 13:56 described your childhood at 128 Washington Street as full of rage and 14:01 alcoholism Yeah It was a war zone If it was a war zone who were the casualties 14:09 I was a casualty My siblings were the casualty My mom was the casualty My mom 14:16 is now in advanced dementia And I absolutely absolutely believe that the 14:22 level of abuse that she endured caused that So you do suffer trauma when you 14:28 grow up in some level of poverty And when you grow up with you know they say the first enemy of a child is an 14:36 unhealed parent And I had two unhealed parents And certainly in every community 14:42 we have unhealed parents But when it becomes the Africanamean community you 14:48 have the one-two punch of family trauma 14:53 and cultural trauma A trauma of people that just don't see you a world that 14:59 just doesn't see you And I think that was a double whammy for my dad who raged 15:05 out of control And I'm just guessing at that because he was not 15:10 curious And so that he raged What do you mean he wasn't curious He wasn't curious 15:16 enough to know what was behind that rage and to heal it is what I'm saying is 15:22 it's all we have is curiosity All we have is curiosity to wake up every single day 15:29 with I don't know you you walk into any situation and you you have anxiety to 15:36 just say what's that Where's that coming from 15:41 Or do you just live with it Do you say that you know what I want to live a 15:47 transcendent life I don't want to roll into my grave being just a sort of mere 15:53 the the crappy version of myself That's what curiosity does It keeps you 16:00 growing you know and it doesn't m mean that it's perfect growth but it does 16:05 mean that you're curious enough to know who you are inside that home I want to 16:12 better understand how you coexisted and and made it through And to do that um I 16:19 thought you could read from page 70 of your book Oh page 70 Okay I have it 16:25 highlighted here Oh my goodness What is page 70 Just the highlighted parts I think 16:32 No but sometimes we would go to the bar back in the day when parents could take 16:37 kids to the bar and play darts and pool and be treated to Sprite and potato chips These happy moments would soon be 16:44 followed by trauma The rage of my dad's alcoholic binges violence poverty hunger 16:51 and isolation In my child's mind I was the problem I would retreat to the bathroom 16:58 put something against the door So no one would come in and I'd sit for an 17:03 inordinate amount of time staring at my fingers and hands and try to erase 17:09 everything in my mind I wish I could elevate out of my body Leave it One time 17:15 when I was about 9 years old I succeeded I left it My body that is in a manner of 17:22 speaking I floated up to the ceiling looking down at myself observing my hair 17:28 my legs and my face Then I faced myself staring directly into me 17:35 Wow I loved it It was a magical secret power Only I didn't see myself as 17:42 magical or powerful I just felt free It was my way of disappearing It was my 17:49 high I couldn't always control this out of body sense But when I could it was 17:54 beyond fabulous The power to leave my body to be relieved of Biola for a while 18:00 was an everpresent image that followed me for decades How did you feel reading that 18:12 Um you know what I when I look back at um little 18:20 Viola I never felt safe You know what Even worse than 18:27 that I felt wrong I felt like whoever was building 18:34 me up there in the sky just did everything 18:40 wrong Put me in the wrong family put me in the wrong 18:45 circumstances didn't make me pretty enough made me too 18:53 black Every aspect of me was wrong I 18:58 didn't see any evidence in life of 19:04 love I couldn't articulate it at the time I 19:09 just sort of disappeared and numbed cuz that's what you do when you 19:17 grow up in violence too You do everything you can to make yourself as small as 19:22 possible And then I was a bed wetter and then add adding the poverty 19:28 with that it just felt wrong If I did 19:34 have a call to adventure it would be to find 19:41 self-love to find some to find God who can put the deusex machina That's what 19:49 they call it in Greek tragedy the god from the machine that would pluck characters out of a play And when they 19:55 pluck them out of the play it was a sign that they were dead But I just wanted to 20:01 be I wanted God to appear to tell me that I was made with love 20:11 or some level of purpose cuz I didn't see any evidence of it None I don't know 20:18 if God appeared but Cesaly Tyson in the autobiography of Miss Jane Pitman did 20:25 appear Yes And she did come down Yes And pluck you Yes 1974 Yes You and your 20:33 family crowding around the TV Yes What happened 20:39 You know what It's that emoji I don't That emoji I I'm using it more now The 20:44 emoji where the brain is being blown to bits That's what it was It was the emoji 20:50 where it was a God moment It was a sermon on the mount It was the burning bush as Elizabeth Gilbert would say It's 20:58 one of those moments where you know the wind stopped blowing because what I saw 21:05 was magic I saw excellence and I saw it in a body 21:11 of a woman who looked like me who really looked like my mom My mom and her very 21:16 very similar And I saw evidence of what I wanted to become and that scene that you 21:23 just read from Yeah In the bathroom disassociating elevating some kind of 21:29 magic trick in that leaving your body becoming somebody else Yeah Do you think that paired with Miss Tyson's work were 21:37 the early foundations for you as a young actor 21:42 Absolutely But there was a lot of early foundations Miss Tyson was one of them 21:48 My sister Diane was one of them Mr Yates my drama teacher was one of them Mr Aces 21:55 who was the head of the glee club was one of them My sister Dolores the birth 22:00 of my sister Danielle who I loved more than anything uh you know on the planet 22:07 All of those were signs that carried me carried you 22:12 to Rhode Island College Having participated in the Upwardbound 22:18 program in high school I heard you used to tell people acting is not what I do 22:24 it's who I am Oh my god I take that back 22:29 I take that back a little bit It is what I do But but at the time it was true At the time it was true because it was 22:36 healing And there's one performance that's not in your memoir Yeah That I think really represents your commitment 22:44 to becoming an actor I don't know if you know what I'm going to say Oh my god I I hope you're not going to say something 22:49 bad but no such thing At some point during college or maybe a little after college you performed this onewoman show 22:58 as musician at a Jones all across Rhode Island You wore a blue dress I don't 23:04 know if it was as blue as that in the performance And you even did the show once at a basketball court Yep Where one 23:12 person was in the audience People were playing basketball and I think there was a dog Yep That jumped on me Tell me 23:18 about this performance It was horrible First of all it was not a good performance But you know what I 23:25 say that with great pride Mhm Cisoretta Jones She's a opera singer out of Rhode 23:31 Island I think in the 19 turn of the 20th century which I can't even sing And 23:38 I think I sang 14 songs I was told you were going to sing a couple of them for us today My god No But you know you know 23:46 what though Here's the thing You really do learn through 23:52 failure You really do Because I remember my sisters came to see it and they were 23:58 like "That was awful." They said "Did you even hear yourself?" I mean it was 24:04 awful And I remember I felt so bad But here's the thing I got up and I did it 24:11 again And it was still bad but a little bit better And then I did it again 24:17 And I did it again And I think that what happens with all of that 24:26 is by the time I got to the final performance it was a final performance where it was just an audience of one and 24:33 it was greatly improved Was that at the basketball court No the basketball court was maybe four people Okay The final 24:41 performance was one person And if you're willing to go through the 24:48 pain and work with fear I think there's some beautiful discoveries 24:54 there And the beautiful discovery I made is I had it in 25:00 me I had the tools to live better to work myself through failure It wasn't 25:06 the performance that mattered That's just a cosmic carrot It's the journey in 25:11 taking out everything that I had within me to keep 25:17 going And for me that's proof positive 25:22 of God's love I call it God's love for me because he gave me the courage to 25:27 know that there was something even better with even within a performance that probably I wasn't even right for 25:35 I love that story and I don't know it's not in the book but I I love that story because if you're going to do it you're 25:43 going to do it anywhere anytime for anyone at any place at a basketball 25:49 court dog barking people playing pickup in the background even in a blue silk 25:54 dress That's you either do or don't It's 25:59 the doing it that's the beauty of it In many ways it's the only thing that really matters That's it Do you show up 26:06 Show up You showed up to um your audition to Giuliard and said "Um I have 26:14 45 minutes for this audition." Uh-huh Is that true That is true And they said 26:19 "What?" They said "Um the first You 26:24 audition a lot at Jiuliard It has a at the time it had a 3% um acceptance rate 26:30 So the first room I auditioned and it I was so nervous at the time but I said "I 26:36 only have 45 minutes I have to get back to the theater in Providence I have to get on the train It's 4-hour trip." And 26:42 so they talked amongst themselves after seeing my audition And then they stopped 26:47 all the auditions that they had There were like it seemed like hundreds of kids there and they took all their 26:53 chairs All of the teachers took all their chairs into the big big um it was 27:00 a it was a rehearsal room It was the biggest think room 103 I remember the room 103 They took all their chairs in 27:08 there because in in at Giuliard you audition for a different set of teachers like maybe five auditions You're there 27:15 all day sometimes two or three days So all of them took their chairs into one room to see me and I knew I had gotten 27:23 in You know what I what I miss about myself at that 27:29 time I'm just thinking about this that I knew that I knew that I knew 27:36 that I was good I think that as you get go along the 27:43 imposttor syndrome can take over more and that's because you're exposed to the 27:49 world and no one could tell you the sort of hyperbiblical level of confidence you 27:55 need when when when you're at that level of your profession You know you almost 28:02 have to have an arrogant level of confidence which I do not have But at 28:07 that point I knew I was good I knew I 28:13 was going to get in I I just did And there's something about that that I miss 28:19 I could take a sliver of that now So you're saying the performer that was in 28:26 $50,000 of college debt was more confident than EGOT winner 28:33 Viola Davis Yeah What the hell does that mean When I say 28:39 confident too is you always want to be better Okay you do I'm contradicting 28:47 myself a little bit What I'm about to say I'm I'm not mad at the imposttor 28:53 syndrome I think that people I think it's um underrated actually 29:01 Okay But at the time I didn't even have imposttor syndrome I just knew that I 29:06 knew that I knew that I was great I did Now that the world has gotten to me it's 29:12 like oh I could have been better Oh you know this Oh you know yeah I got the he got but you know I could have done this 29:18 better I could have done that better Now Viola herself which is different than 29:23 Viola younger Now this is not the work This is just me 29:30 Way more self-love Mhm Those are two different things That's the trade-off Yeah At Giuliard what was the objective 29:38 of their training Were they shaping you into a good actress or a perfect white actress Definitely a perfect white 29:46 actress And what does that look like What it looks like it's technical training in order to deal with the 29:52 classics in order to deal with the Stinbergs and the O'Neals and the check 29:57 offs and the Shakespeare I totally understand that to get your voice everything and but what it denies is the 30:05 human being behind all of that I feel that as a black actress I'm always being 30:13 tasked to show that I have range by doing white 30:18 work So if I can master I don't know Blanch Dubois in Tennessee Williams you 30:25 know street car named Desire which I'd love to see by the way I would love to see it too I did it in class once I 30:31 listen and listen I could do the best I can with Tennessee Williams but he writes for fragile white 30:38 women Beautiful work but it's it's not me or do a fabulous job playing I don't 30:45 know Hermione in Winter's Tale in Shakespeare but we don't put those same 30:51 parameters on white actors You know you can have a white actress who's 54 55 30:57 years old which is a great age to play Mama in Raising the Sun 31:02 Is she going to be able to pull off Mama and Raising the Sun Is she going to be able to pull off Bonita Is she going to 31:08 be able to pull off Molly in Joe Turner's Come and Gone when Molly says I ain't going south and make me believe it 31:16 They don't have to do that So for those four years at Giuliard all the white actor has to do is play all white 31:25 characters That's not me Me I'm tasked to only do 31:31 the classics and no black um writer is included in those classics And then once 31:37 I leave Giuliard guess what Most of what I will be asked to do 31:44 are black characters which people will not feel that I am black enough So then 31:50 I'm caught in a quagmire this sort of in between place of of sort of not 31:57 understanding how to use myself as the canvas 32:03 Giuliard It was an out-of- body experience because once again I did not 32:08 think that I could use me Me needed to be left at the front door Even though me 32:14 was what got me in there you was what also delivered you to the work of August 32:21 Wilson Yes When you leave college speaking of a playright that's not often 32:26 taught Yeah in school People know you from Fences Mahraini King Henley II but 32:36 your first Tony nomination came from your turn in Seven Guitars Yes Um in the 32:42 mid '9s I think it was Yes But on the subject of 32:47 whiteness was there a Q&A you had after one performance where there was a certain 32:54 response from someone that that made you that opened your eyes to to the 32:59 conditions in which you were working Yes It was in San Francisco at ACT You mean 33:05 liberal San Francisco Liberal San Francisco You know sometimes the liberal or you 33:11 know conservative is just a mask for um something else But um it was after a 33:19 performance and one of the um audience members raised their hand and said "Why 33:25 should we care about Floyd school boy Barton which is the main subject the 33:31 character in Seven Guitars who's a blues singer who's just come out of jail He comes out of jail He makes a hit He has 33:38 a hit record and he's about to be um he's about to be famous and he gets 33:43 killed It's a tragedy And in the end this audience member said "I didn't feel 33:49 anything Why should we care about him?" Uh was he famous It's not like he's BB 33:55 King you know Um so why should we care about him He's not in the history books 34:01 He's not in the history books And for me that's something deeper It's a huge 34:07 problem I have with narratives What is it I think that people have a hard time 34:12 sitting with a black character for 2 hours whether it's in a movie or whether it's in a play I think they're okay with 34:20 it if it's an allegory if we're not really representing a human 34:26 being okay If we're representing an idea maybe they will maybe they'll carry it 34:32 okay because then they can be they can look at it academically They can attach it to a politic or something Absolutely 34:39 Right Um maybe they could do it if it's not deep if it's maybe a 34:46 comedy but to have someone sit with you like you would in All My 34:54 Sons Death of a Salesman you know there is a sort of 34:59 bering for our worth in narratives that if I made it into a 35:05 history book then I can know as maybe someone white I'll know that you're 35:13 worthy of my time in the theater Me being worthy of anyone's time in the 35:19 theater is me breathing Tony Morrison coined the 35:25 phrase the white gaze And the reason why she coined it is because she said every 35:31 time she pen to paper she had an imaginary white character on her shoulder that kept saying "Write for me 35:38 Make me understand it I don't understand it Make me understand it." 35:43 And so she felt that every time she read any work even if it were The Invisible 35:49 Man or Frederick Douglas's autobiography she said the reason why she knew it 35:54 wasn't written for her is because they were explaining things that you wouldn't have to explain to her 36:01 Okay She even felt that Frederick Douglas was holding something back when she got her first review for Schula in 36:07 New York Times a glowing review but the one aspect of the review that really 36:13 threw her was the writer said she could be brilliant if she only had white 36:18 characters in it M I want to be seen as human as human as fragile as messy as 36:27 much of a paradox as any character in Tennessee Williams or Anton Czechov or 36:33 Eugene O'Neal And I think that I want you to sit with 36:38 me even if I have five minutes of a silent moment because of what is 36:44 happening in my life As author Miller said in view from the bridge about Eddie 36:51 he's like he may be a despicable character but something is happening to 36:57 him and attention needs to be made Attention needs to be made with us I'm 37:03 many things beyond my blackness Your artistry 37:08 in that play Seven Guitars I never got to see it I think I was three or four at 37:15 the time Yeah 37:22 Parents could have taken me maybe Yeah exactly Um I want to hold like how you saw your purpose and your artistry in 37:29 that moment working long long hours in these theater productions that were paying you okay but you know can't buy 37:38 home And to do that um I want to set up a scene Mhm in the play which is set in 37:44 a Pittsburgh tenement in 1948 where you play Vera the sometimes 37:49 girlfriend to the 1940s blues musician Floyd who's trying in this scene to 37:55 desperately get Vera back Yeah In the production you played Vera Mhm And um I 38:01 think it was Keith David Keith David Yeah Who played Floyd But I'd like to swap roles for today and um see if we 38:08 can read this scene together Um okay here we go 38:16 doing a scene opposite of you as someone who's not an actor is um horrifying 38:26 Uh thankfully this is mostly you talking in this scene Yeah And I'm playing Floyd I mean Okay Ready 38:34 I want to say yeah but what am I saying yeah to Another heartache Another time for you to walk out the door with 38:40 another woman You was there too Vera You had a hand in 38:46 whatever it was Maybe all the times we don't know the effect of what we do but we cause 38:51 what happens to us Sometimes even in little ways we can't see I went up to Chicago with Pearl 38:58 Brown cuz she was willing to believe that I could take her someplace she wanted to go that I could give her 39:05 things that she wanted to have She told me by that it was possible Even 39:12 sometimes when you question yourself when you wonder can you really make the music work for you Can you find a way to 39:18 get it out into the world so it can burst in the air and have it mean something to 39:23 somebody She didn't know if I could do that if I could have a hit record but 39:29 she was willing to believe it Maybe it was selfish of her Maybe she believed for all the wrong reasons But that gave 39:35 me a chance to try So yeah I took it It wasn't easy I was scared But when them 39:41 red lights came on in that recording studio it was like a bell ringing in the boxing match And I did it I reached down 39:49 inside me and I pulled out whatever was there I did like my mama told me I did my best And I figured nobody could fault 39:56 me for that Then when they didn't release the record Pearl Brown left She thought she had believed wrong 40:04 I don't fault her for that But I never lost a belief in myself Then when they released the 40:11 record I realized I didn't have nothing but a hit record I come back to you figuring you 40:17 couldn't say no to a man who had got a hit record but you did And that made me see that you wanted more than Pearl 40:24 Brown I'm here saying I can give it to you Try me one more time and I'll never jump 40:32 back on you in life I got to thinking and I went down to the Greyhound bus station 40:39 too Here See that See what does that say It 40:44 says one way Chicago to Pittsburgh It's good for one year from date to purchase 40:50 I'm going to put that in my shoe When we get to Chicago I'm going to walk around on it I hope I never have to use it 40:58 Well that's all right I forgot all about that scene I 41:04 can tell one person has won a Tony Award Oh in this conversation 41:11 did the music begin to work for you Did it burst into the air into the 41:17 world when you got the role in Doubt Oh most 41:23 definitely That's when it burst in the air because I love that description of art I I think that's I love that line I 41:30 try to use it all the time and I always misquote it You can take that with you today 41:37 cuz that's what you want with your art You want it to mean something to someone 41:42 Authur Miller says it I write so people can feel less alone 41:49 I mean I think that there's probably a lot of young actors coming up now who just want the awards and they want the 41:55 money Um but really a true artist wants it to 42:00 sort of burst in the air and they want it to sort of shift people shift how you 42:07 think about yourself and the world I mean that's the goal It's a lofty 42:15 goal but it's a goal nevertheless You wrote a 100page biography for that 42:20 character in doubt Yeah A character that appears in the movie for less than 10 minutes Yeah Tell me how you go about 42:28 unpacking a character like that Before you go unpack how you go about unpacking any character from that period 42:35 onward I will say that one of the things that I always do is first of all they 42:41 say in acting you have to be an observer and a thief The observing part comes from life and 42:48 the thief probably comes from looking at other actors work but the observing I 42:53 always have to think of something in my life that I can compare it to I was lost 43:00 because I didn't understand the woman who would allow her son to stay with a man that she that could possibly be 43:07 molesting him and just say at least he's mentoring him when his father all the 43:15 father does is beat him I just didn't understand that I felt it was uh too 43:21 stark too allegorical I I I didn't get it 43:27 What happens for me is when I get a character the reason why I write is the more I write I think I can unlock 43:34 something What's their favorite color What's their first memory Now if it's written within an inch of its life a lot 43:40 of times it's already in there I only had 8 minutes so I had to make up something And then I ask people 43:46 questions of course because what I need to find out is what is the driving need 43:52 in their life What do they live for Do they want to be 43:58 loved Do they want to have control And I remember um an acting 44:04 teacher of mine cuz I I I kept trying to figure out and one of the things she said is Biola maybe she leaves her son 44:13 in that situation Here's a big aha moment because she has no choice 44:21 What are you telling me 44:28 I'm talking about the boy's nature now not anything he's 44:35 done You can't hold a child responsible for what God gave him to be 44:42 I'm only interested in actions Mrs Miller But then there's the boy's nature 44:48 Leave that out of it Forget it then You want forcing people to say 44:58 things My boy came to your school cuz they were going to kill him in a public 45:05 school His father don't like him He come to your school kids don't 45:10 like him One man is good to him this priest Then does a man have his reasons 45:19 Yes Everybody does You have your reasons but do I ask the man why he's good to my 45:29 son No I don't care 45:39 why My son needs some man to care about 45:45 him and to see him through the way he wants to go And thank God this educated man with 45:52 some kindness in him wants to do just that This will not do It's just till 45:57 June I'll throw your son out of this school Why would you do that if it didn't start with him Because I will 46:03 stop this You'd hurt my son to get your way It won't end with your son Throw the priest out then I am trying to do just 46:11 that Then what do you want from me Merryill Streep your co-star said the 46:17 director made you go back and reshoot that scene re-shoot the next day again 46:23 and again and again and again Mhm And I wonder did that 46:29 repetition how did you use that How did you continue doing that scene over and 46:34 over Because just doing it once seems like it would take a whole lifetime to 46:39 produce that kind of work Well um that's my theater training I've done plays for 46:45 over a year again and again and again I've done four-hour plays I've done one woman shows I have over a 40-year career 46:53 So he could have done it 50 times and I would have been able to do it over and over again And you were unflapable in 47:00 that I was pretty unflapable You know what I'm an actor who stays in 47:05 my lane What does that mean I'm not trying to be like anyone else 47:12 I wasn't trying to be like Adrien Lennox who you know who auditioned for the part She auditioned for the part and she was 47:19 you know she originated the part Fantastic actor Great I'm not trying to 47:24 be like anyone else I'm just trying to do what I do And um I did not see it did 47:32 not throw me And I didn't have enough experience in my life up until that time to have 47:40 the sort of wisdom for it to throw me I just thought that this is just what 47:45 people do when they do a scene with Meryill Street It goes incredibly well 47:51 You receive an Oscar nomination In the aftermath you talked earlier about 47:56 getting to a place on How to Get Away with Murder where you had that crisis of 48:02 faith a little bit Yeah Yeah And I'm curious in How to Get Away with Murder and In Widows Um you said both 48:09 Shondaanda Rimes and Steve McQueen saw something in me that other filmmakers did not Mhm What did they see an 48:18 explorer that the industry seemed to be ignoring They saw me as a woman 48:26 Usually I'm just seen as mama you know with no sexuality with no 48:37 mess Yeah They saw me as a woman and they saw me as a complicated 48:42 woman And um I think notoriously women who look like me are seen limited like 48:48 that And we always have to bear the weight and the responsibility of it Like why don't you lose some weight wanted to 48:55 make your voice higher wanted to do something different with your hair As if your worth and your personage should be 49:03 bothered Our job as artists is to show you hum a 49:10 human being Human beings are vast It's only in 49:16 movie and TV land where only the guy the guy who gets the girl the girl always 49:23 has to look cute the first scene If the guy is cute the woman has got to be cute 49:28 If if there is a great best friend then she's usually overweight She's really 49:33 really funny And my thing that's not my world I don't understand that world The 49:39 world is way more vast than that And it's our job to be the conduit to bring 49:46 the audience that truth And I think that's what Shondaanda Rimes and that's what um and Pete Noalk who is a 49:54 showrunner of uh was the showrunner of How to Get Away with Murder and Steve McQueen saw in me What did it feel like 50:00 to be seen Feels free 50:05 man You know when other people see you then it forces you to see 50:11 yourself You know after a while when a culture defines you um your family 50:18 defines you you become trapped in definition and 50:25 labels Somewhere in there is you You know you're in there somewhere but you 50:30 don't even know who you are anymore You sort of filter it into a 50:36 profession in order to get the job And then all of who you are gets 50:42 sort of left in a room somewhere because it you feel like it has to look 50:48 a certain way No it doesn't Sanford Meisner says the most 50:54 important question an actor can ask is why I'm going to redefine that question 51:01 I think the most important question anyone can ask is why And then when you 51:06 get to the end of why the most really powerful question you can ask is why not 51:13 Why can't I be the weight I am now Why can't I have muscular arms Why can't I 51:20 have a deep voice Why can't I be a love interest Why do I have to be 35 Why 51:27 can't you be that confident performer that you were at Giuliard 51:33 Well the world hadn't gotten to me yet Yes Okay So now it's gotten to you Now 51:38 the world has gotten to me This is what it looks like to be got to Yes This is what it looks like to be got to I tell 51:43 you it looks pretty damn good Well well thank you very much But what I needed to do is press the pause button and work on 51:52 the other part of me You know the thing about it is I I 51:58 remember every time I would do a really great performance I would feel so jazzed and so happy and then go 52:05 home And Viola didn't feel like anything if she wasn't working If she wasn't on 52:11 stage doing a monologue that made everybody cry and stand up and throw flowers then she was worthless 52:20 And as soon as I stepped off the stage it was like unplugging a phone or and and the phone losing its 52:29 charge The rest of my life looked like a wasteland And I've realized once again 52:37 is the reason why I wanted to be a great actress is because I just wanted to be 52:45 somebody But that ain't it It's just not 52:51 it And I think you know Joseph Campbell talks about slaying dragons and going 52:58 out there and with mentors and allies and then you finally get to that inmost 53:03 cave where you come face to face not with God but with yourself 53:11 And what I realize is I was always worthy 53:17 I didn't have to do anything for that It's not the power cord 53:23 anymore It's just not So what is I'm the power 53:31 cord I am Every single day when I wake up and 53:36 put my feet on the floor my job is to not betray myself 53:42 Acting is just one aspect of who I am And every single time I betray myself 53:49 that's it It's like I've unplugged myself once again It's what gives my life meaning which by the way what gives 53:57 my life meaning is my story Completely embracing 54:02 it you know I'm worthy Who knew I didn't 54:08 think that I I my big thing is okay the bed wetter B viola who would chuck a 54:14 finger all the time and call people [ __ ] [ __ ] at six years old It was the hardest sentence to write in 54:20 the book by the way No one wanted me to open the book with [ __ ] [ __ ] were my favorite words when 54:26 I was growing up But I wanted to capture little Viola Little Viola was fantastic 54:37 She did not betray herself ever She was extremely 54:45 inappropriate She was extremely rough around the edges She 54:54 smelled She was unruly She had three pink slips and four 55:00 white slips Disciplinary action and you know and every single day was in 55:08 detention But she was Viola She was alive And every single time I feel like 55:15 I have to go back to heal her she's sitting on some bench somewhere imaginary bench saying "You don't have 55:21 to heal me I'm perfectly fine I'm waiting for you to heal yourself so we can just sit and just squeal about this 55:27 freaking life that we both created because I'm the one who got thrust out 55:33 into the world and and let other people get at me Your husband said Viola is 55:39 never far away from that little girl she talks about She's never forgot her Yeah 55:45 You think he's right Oh absolutely You know what When I think 55:50 about her it's the only thing that really makes me enjoy my life What What 55:57 do you mean Because it gives me perspective I talk about my therapist 56:02 who you know who said you know when I said I got to you know it's my job to 56:08 heal this little girl because she was really traumatized cuz the violence in the house he was like why I thought she 56:14 was pretty brave Mhm She she she got it done It's a 55 Maybe it was 55 56:20 55year-old Viola that needs help I was like "Excuse me I'm evolved." He was 56:26 like "Let her squeal." You know they say that only two people 56:32 you only anything is six-year-old self and your 80-year-old self 56:37 You know I do And I only have two questions left for us because then we got to go Okay But speaking of 56:44 perspective um in 2008 around doubt when most people were introduced 56:50 to you and your artistry you were 43 years old then Mhm And you did this 56:57 interview on NPR where they asked you about recognition Does it mean anything now 57:03 that you've received the Oscar nomination And I just want to listen to what you said back then This is you back 57:11 in 2008 I don't care what they say The bottom line is they want to do something that 57:16 moves people that affects them in some way or else what you do is kind of 57:22 meaningless So when you get all the buzz and the reaction you know it's hitting 57:28 someone The part that means nothing is the part that hasn't translated into 57:35 anything tangible Buzz doesn't pay the mortgage Buzz doesn't you know buzz is 57:43 buzz And it's also what you don't really do the project for And I always kind of 57:50 feel you know it's just me It's once again they're going to find me out They're building me up just to knock me 57:56 down You know that's the part that doesn't mean anything because you know what At the end of the day you got to 58:01 keep working I am a theater trained actress I'm not a fluke I'm not a body 58:09 I'm not a face I'm an actor I want to be able to do what Helen Mirren Merill Stre 58:16 all of them are doing That is my dream 17 years later as you turn 60 this 58:24 year it's getting deep Is that you say "I'm not a fluke I'm not a 58:31 body I'm not a face." Right I'm an actor Mhm 58:37 to say that in that moment after all that you had been through to get to that 58:43 performance in doubt Yeah To stand on that and to know then 58:48 I guess now that you have lived up to everything that you said you wanted to do 58:54 there What is the dream for you Two 58:59 things I'm always trying to find home Mhm You know I tell my daughter all the time 59:06 I give her that quote you know how silly of me that I did not know that I was the love of my 59:12 life I'm beginning to understand that So that number one Number 59:18 two it's my job in life because we will be no more 59:26 It's coming and we don't know when it's coming It's It's some deep [ __ ] out there But here's the thing I see life as 59:33 a relay race I do I do see it where you see a relay 59:39 race and you see all the great runners Each one that runs their leg of the race is a great runner in and of themselves 59:46 So you're passing the baton I'm passing the baton man to the next great runner 59:51 I need to leave something in people I do And you have that dash of time to be 59:58 able to do it to be able to make that change And I think that that pretty much the 1:00:04 the twofold of loving oneself and leaving something behind 1:00:10 that's what makes a life And Lamont writes "You can either leave something for people or you can leave something in 1:00:17 people." And when you leave something in them it burns like an ember It does It's it's it 1:00:25 burns forever You have a lot of people like Anton Czechov said who are living 1:00:30 lives in quiet desperation And all of us can be healers if we choose whatever we 1:00:38 choose we choose as an elixir to heal You could be fabulous at 1:00:45 what you're doing You can even make a lot of money doing it But ultimately if the goal is not for it to burst into the 1:00:53 air and have it mean something to someone then you're not doing anything 1:00:59 Your elixir since time immemorial was observation Has been 1:01:05 observation And my last question for us cuz we had to go Yeah Can you tell me 1:01:11 about as an observer and thief and actor that woman on the 1:01:17 corner standing in the freezing cold weather Mhm That you saw as a 1:01:27 child I think the one reason why I became an actor is because I see her And 1:01:33 who is she Oh she's everything 1:01:38 She's a little girl who played with Barbie dolls who wanted to be somebody 1:01:44 She's probably someone who had a really deep laugh She's someone who probably fell in 1:01:51 love with everything in her being and maybe got her heart broken She's someone who's worthy of 1:01:59 love belonging I see her And I think that's why I 1:02:06 became an artist is because I see her When you saw her where was she at She's 1:02:12 so many people growing up in Central Falls on Dexter Street on Broad Street 1:02:18 you know with the cigarette and and and the bad skin The bloodshot eyes The bloodshot eyes The dirty sneakers Dirty 1:02:25 sneakers The corduroy coats Corduroy coat You know that with the fall fur and the inside and and the jeans that don't 1:02:31 fit I think that by the time she makes it to the screen she's been so filtered down into a version um acceptable 1:02:39 version of herself And I think that when you water her down into an acceptable version of herself you're telling her 1:02:46 that you don't love her You're telling her that you're not meeting her where she is I meet people 1:02:53 where they are If if a role calls for me take my wig off or to have no makeup or to have snot 1:03:01 coming out of my nose because that's who the person is then I am honoring their truth It's that that's reconciling 1:03:08 little Viola Little Viola who went to school whose teacher said "You got to go home 1:03:14 because you you smell so bad." You 1:03:20 know I didn't feel worthy because I felt like I had to filter myself down I had 1:03:26 to go through a machine of worthiness And worthiness is nothing to be bartered 1:03:31 with It's asis You are worthy as is right now As 1:03:39 my daughter said when she saw this homeless man in Chicago it was at the last day of widows She was 6 years old 1:03:47 and we were in the car getting ready to go back to the trailer It was over And she said 1:03:54 "Oh look at that homeless man Look at mama He's dirty and he 1:04:02 probably smells bad Oh my god." And then there was a big pause and she said "But he's my brother 1:04:14 God says he's my brother And I think that's the most beautiful 1:04:21 transcendent part of being an actor is that when you meet people where they are 1:04:28 and you channel them where they are they become your 1:04:34 brother We're wired for connection And sometimes for me that's where I got it 1:04:40 from in my art And it's been my honor to do that And 1:04:46 sometimes even if I'm I fail at least that was the objective to see the 1:04:51 invisible Yes To recreate them and make them present and visible to all of us 1:04:56 Absolutely Well I um I hope you haven't been watered down or filtered in this 1:05:03 conversation No it's been fantastic Hope none of it gets me in trouble But you 1:05:09 know what Here's the thing You know it's like John Lewis says "Maybe I'll get into some good trouble." I I I I wish 1:05:14 that for us both Yes And and speaking of the work how it lives in me and I know 1:05:20 so many people listening Mhm Thank you 1:05:27 Thank you Thank you I appreciate that Mhm Viola 1:05:33 Davis appreciate you coming in Thank you Thank you for having me 1:05:43 [Music]