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This Sept. 9, 2018 photo shows Viola Davis, cast member in the movie "Widows," posing for a portrait at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel during the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto. (Photo by Chris Pizzello / Invision / AP) The Associated Press
By JAKE COYLE, AP Movie Writer
TORONTO (AP) – To Viola Davis, being naked on screen or more than having your clothes off. It means ridding yourself of self-consciousness and ego. It means exposing yourself.
"Oftentimes you do see dynamic acting – there is a lot of really dynamic actors – but there is a sense of vanity," says Davis. "I always say that when we get naked we're going to have a role in the gym and we know that we're not in the box. You may have some stretch marks Now that's intimate. "
There was, memorably, no vanity in Davis' Rose in "Fences," a performance that reached its aching crescendo in her shattering, snot-dripping "18 years of my life" monologue. But in Steve McQueen's electric Chicago underworld thriller "Widows," Davis' raw intimacy includes a dimension she has rarely, if ever, gotten to express in film – her baduality.
"It's a part of the strength." It's a part of the vulnerability, "Davis, fighting a cold, said in an interview the morning after" Widows "premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. "The first scene in the movie" I'm in a relationship with Liam Neeson That may seem like a big deal.
In "Widows," McQueen's follow-up to the Oscar-winning "12 Years a Slave," Davis stars as the wife of a veteran thief (Neeson) who dies, along with his crew, in a heist gone wrong. For their spouses, it's almost as if their lives have been extinguished. But with Veronica Rawlins' leadership, they play Michelle Rodriguez and Elizabeth Debicki and Carrie Coon.
"This was a great experiment in exploring how to work out getting back your power," says Davis. "In my life I'm still learning that."
When a reporter goes out on the screen – she is one of the most movingly outspoken advocates for on-screen representation and inclusion – "Like everyone, I have my good moments and bad moments."
Davis has won an Oscar (for "Fences"), an Emmy (for "How to Get Away With Murder") and a Tony, twice (for "Fences" and "King Hedley II") – a trifecta that no other black actor has accomplished, and few others, for that matter. Along the way, her impbadioned acceptance speeches have been some of the most potent thunderbolts of inspiration in the wider struggle for diversity, beamed to the unrepresented and the overlooked everywhere.
But it's been almost a decade since her "Doubt" co-star Meryl Streep pleaded "My God, somebody give her a movie!" at the Screen Actors Guild Awards (and later called her "possessed to the blazing, incandescent power"). Since then, Davis has been a mainstay on screens big and small, but she has seldom – except in the Shonda Rhimes ABC series and now "Widows" – been front and center. She has even expressed some regret over 2011's "The Help," noting "it was not the voices of the maids that were heard." The same year, Davis formed a production company with her husband, the actor Julius Tennon, with whom she has an eight-year-old daughter.
For McQueen, Davis' lack of leading performances is one of the most glaring injustices in Hollywood.
"McQueen said by phone." Do not forget: she could not really make a living in a movie. "She was not given an opportunity to fulfill her craft, so she had to go on television." Viola's 53 years old.
Does Davis feel the same way?
"I mean, yeah," she sighs. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I'm getting it right." Some dissatisfaction with the moment – I can not do that, I really can not.
Davis, the fifth of their six children, grew up impoverished, in dilapidated homes in Rhode Island, the daughter of an alcoholic father who was abusive to Davis' mother.
"I became an actor because I was an observer, and you're observers and they're watching you," says Davis. "The beauty of how you grow up is so much when you grow up poor, when you grow up poor, you are in the know. the alcoholic is, you know who's getting beaten by their husband. "
Davis has said before that she's motivated to honor the dreams of her "eight-year-old self." "She's always sitting there," says Davis. "And, really, it's easy to make her happy, it's going to make me happy now."
That upbringing has informed how he has been responding to the #MeToo movement: applauding it, encouraging it, but also fearing that its focus on the Hollywood actresses and executives is limited. She cites her long-running involvement with Gail Abarbanel's bad Treatment Center at the Stuart House.
"It's much bigger than a hashtag," she says.
"Widows," penned by McQueen and Gillian Flynn ("Gone Girl") is based on Lynda's The Plante's 1980s British series, but its tale of female empowerment has obvious connections to today. In rehearsals, McQueen would sit with Davis and the other actresses and talk through their own experiences. "All the things in our lives we did not see," says Davis. "Like my femininity."
McQueen wanted to bring all of those stories to the table. Davis would have preferred to wear McQueen disagreed. He wanted Davis to look just how she is. "I know this woman," McQueen told her. "She just has not been in the American cinema.
Davis has made these introductions to regularity, bringing one African-American woman to another where they did not before exist.
"My big thing – this is my ego – I always want to be in the conversation," she says. "Not just in movies, just in terms of people seeing themselves differently."
Follow AP Movie Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP
Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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