VICTORIOUS VIOLA DAVIS

If you’ve watched The Help, Fences, The Suicide Squad or The First Lady, you have experienced the talent and presence of American actor extraordinaire Viola Davis.

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Born in South Carolina and raised in Rhode Island, New York, her road to fame and fortune is littered with earlier stories of hunger, perseverance and staying the course to achieve her dreams.

As the first-ever Black woman to win an Oscar, an Emmy and a Tony for acting, her life story to here, revealed in the #1 New York Times bestseller, Finding Me – A Memoir, is not easy reading. Compared to where we see Viola today, her book paints a picture of a child growing up that was anything but Hollywood glitz and glamour.

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BROKEN HOME
Childhood grief, punctuated by racism, generational abuse, bullying and sexual assault, Viola pulls no punches. Raised by a loving, caring mother and a violent alcoholic father, she remembers her family home as a “death trap”. Whether she had to face her father’s uncontrollable anger or the rats that infested the house she would fearfully return home to after school each day, she stayed the course through it all.

With that now known, one can only admire her grit and determination to rise above it all.



ACTING THE PART
After graduating from Rhode Island College, where she majored in Theatre, Viola’s first professional off-Broadway acting role arrived in 1992, playing Denis in William Shakespeare’s comedy, As You Like It, between working as a day labourer and telemarketer to make ends meet. Her breakthrough took four more years to reveal itself when she accepted the role of Vera in August Wilson’s Seven Guitars.

As more doors opened than shut, Viola quickly gravitated to our big and small screens. Since 1996 she’s appeared in more than 80 movies and television series and added her name to no less than 22 producer credits.

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WRITING THE WRONGS
In Finding Me, Viola shares what acting gave her and how playing someone other than herself helped her recover and heal from her fractured childhood trauma. “The process and artistry of piecing together a human being completely different from you was the equivalent of being otherworldly,” she explains. “It also has the power to heal the broken. All that was inside me I couldn’t work out in my life, I could channel it all in my work, and no one would be the wiser.”

Through all the many challenges Viola endured growing up, the life she lives now is filled with love and positivity. She married her actor husband, Julius Tennon, in 2003, and the couple went on to adopt their daughter, Genesis, in 2011.

“I always tell Genesis she was born from my heart, not my belly,” Viola shared with InStyle in a 2017 interview. “There are so many ways to mother rather than to carry a child in your body. So many children need parents, and so many of us want to mother. Know that you will experience motherhood to the full extent.”

At the age of 56, Viola has made her mark and is playing her “fiery fuel”, as she puts it, forward to her daughter. Genesis couldn’t ask for a better teacher, especially since the acting bug bit in 2019, when the then 10-year-old made her acting debut in the animated movie, The Angry Birds Movie 2, which also featured her dad as the voice of Vivi.

ONWARD AND UPWARD
Viola is a trailblazer, and today her light continues to burn bright. Having shared her story with the world, Viola is a beacon of hope and possibility, regardless of what life throws at us.

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