Viola Davis regrets playing in "The Help" for deeply personal reasons

The role of Viola Davis as Aibileen Clark in the 2011 film L & # 39; s help won the actress for her first Oscar nomination for best actress. But despite that, she says she would never have accepted the role in the first place.

In a question session with the New York Times at the Toronto International Film Festival, Davis shared his feelings of regret for the role played in the Oscar-nominated film about black girls and their white employers in Mississippi in the 1960s.

Davis was asked about the roles she had regretted passing on, but chose to rotate the conversation to the roles she had regretted having played.

"A better question is whether I've ever played roles that I regret," Davis said. "I have and L & # 39; s help is on this list. "

She explained that her regret was due to the way the film failed to show the perspective of the black characters and to honor their voices.

"I just thought that at the end of the day it was not the voice of the housekeepers that had been heard," said Davis. "I know Aibileen, I know Minny, they are my grandmother, they are my mother."

L & # 39; s help has been widely criticized for downplaying the true horror of living as a black person in the United States in the era of racial segregation and perpetuating the myth of the white savior by emphasizing the righteousness of the characters white.

Davis thinks L & # 39; s help should have been focused on black character experiences.

"If you make a film where everything is the premise, I want to know what it's like to work for whites and to bring up children in 1963, I want to know how you really feel," she said. declared. "I've never heard that during the movie."