Viola Davis said that probably her proudest achievement was the creation of her game-changing character Annalise Keating in legal drama thriller “Find out how to Get Away With Murder,” during an onstage interview Thursday on the Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where many within the ecstatic audience had greeted her by declaring, “I really like you, Viola.”
She also spoke of the bravery that was required to rise up to the orthodoxy that held sway in network TV when the show launched 10 years ago.
Variety publishes, below, an edited excerpt from the interview, which was as refreshing in its honesty because the actor’s performances.
“As a personality [as originally envisaged], she made absolutely no sense,” she said, eliciting laughter and applause within the audience. “I mean, you might have to be honest with it: a number of characters on television, they only don’t make sense. They’re a Mr. Potato Head of an audience’s desires. They need them to walk like supermodels and so they want them to look beautiful within the costumes and within the courtroom scenes, whether or not they’re wearing Alexander McQueen or Armani. They talk really fast in Shondaland, you recognize, faster than what people actually speak. You don’t really see people as talking and listening, and, I mean … I don’t wish to sound like I’m ragging.
“And then you definately go into the sexuality thing, and possibly there’s a plethora of girls on the market who’ve 15 sexual partners in a day, but what’s missing from all of it’s: the why.
“And so, I used to be given the character … her name was Annalise DeWitt after I first began, and I used to be like, DeWitt? So, I did change that. I modified it to Annalise Keating. I mean, she might have been DeWitt, but it surely’s just so grand.
“But the explanation why I feel I’m happy with it’s because I felt it was brave of me. I haven’t all the time been brave in my life, but that was one moment that I used to be brave. I had a choice to make: I could just join the crop of girls who work on TV who, to be honest, they’ve a certain look within the lead roles.
“And, here’s the thing: While you turn into a star, you get every kind of messages from people. It’s like Mark Twain said: You wish two kinds of friends … The chums who speak about you, and the buddies who let you know about individuals who speak about you. So, you get a number of friends who let you know about individuals who speak about you.
“So, there’s so many individuals who said, ‘Oh, she’s miscast. Annalise Keating is described as mysterious and sexual and all that, and that may’t be Viola.’
“Sanford Meisner, a fantastic acting teacher, he said: Probably the most necessary questions an actor can ask is: ‘Why?’ And once you ask ‘Why?’ it brings you on a journey that could possibly be transformative.
“And so, here’s what I needed to do: I needed to no less than attempt to drop some weight and take a look at to be that woman who could possibly be on television, which will not be going to occur. I used to be about 50 years old on the time. It’s not like I used to be going to do Botox and begin eating string beans.
“So, then I needed to ask some questions: Why do I actually have to be that woman? Why does she must walk great in heels? Why can’t I be the scale I’m? And why can’t all those things be true and I be on network TV? Why can’t I take my wig off? Why can’t I wear my natural hair?
“And each time I asked, ‘Why?’ I got to the reality of who Annalise was, and so then I had something to work with, which is trying the most effective I could with network TV writing to make her some semblance of a human being, and in order that was the very first thing with Annalise Keating.
“I remember the phone call with Peter Nowalk, who’s the showrunner-creator of ‘Find out how to Get Away With Murder,’ and Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers, and the pinnacle of the studio [ABC Entertainment Group], Paul Lee. We were all on the phone, and I remember saying, I can’t imagine I used to be saying this, because I wanted the job, y’all, I didn’t wish to lose this job, but I heard myself say it … I said: ‘Well, I’m not going to do that show unless she could take off her wig. And the explanation is, if I take off the wig, and if I take off the makeup, they’re going to must cope with that woman who’s been revealed. They’re going to must deal along with her crinkly, curly hair. They’re going to must cope with the lady behind the mask. And that could be a character that I could play.
“After which you might have to cope with why a girl could be that sexual. You possibly can’t just do it, because here’s the thing, with sexuality and human beings, it’s not pornography. Pornography is selling the sex, right? It’s to show people on. It’s serving a purpose. Being sexual is an extension of who you might be as a human being. It’s based in memory, experience, trauma, all the pieces. You don’t just do it.
“After which if you find yourself having sex, in my imagination, in my fantasy, every sex scene needs to be cringy. I mean, who has a camera of their bedroom, where it’s perfectly shot, and everybody has been within the gym for the last five months, nobody puts down a towel. But I made a decision to cope with the lady who could be bisexual, have affairs, be married to a person who could possibly be a murderer, and in order that’s when her sexual past and her sexual abuse got here up. That’s when Miss Cicely Tyson [who played Ophelia Harkness, Annalise’s mother] got here into the image. After which I felt like I used to be constructing a world that was honest; it was a world that was fantastical, but there have been some threads of the reality in there, that made people lean in, and that’s what I’m most happy with.”
Later, when asked what her legacy could be, she added: “My legacy is to assist people feel less alone. I do think that there’s something sacred when the lights go down and also you’re within the audience and you might have your popcorn and your Sour Patch Kids and your Weight loss program Coke. That’s what I eat, y’all. And there’s something sacred in that relationship and that agreement. And the agreement is that I’m not going to flee as an artist. I’m going to point out you you. You, with all of the piss and the poop, and all those private moments that you simply don’t want to point out people, all of the parts of you that you most likely feel that when you share with people, it could be probably the most shameful a part of your life. I need you to be brave enough to witness that and acknowledge that, and I need to be brave enough to provide it to you.
“And if I can try this, that will be a legacy. Not only the awards and the accolades, however the bravery of how well I can craft that and provides it to you.”
