Viola Davis says she ‘was too big and black’ but now has ‘power to change how Black women are seen’

Viola Davies has claimed she was “too big and too black” when she entered the arts.

The Oscar-winning actress, 57, whose upbringing was marred by poverty, racism, sexual abuse, domestic violence and alcoholism, has said she now has the “power” to change how black women are viewed in the industry.

The Woman King star, who attended New York’s Julliard Conservatory of the Performing Arts for four years, said she felt she “came in with the wrong palette,” but also thanks the school for making her first trip to Africa in the 1990s.

While speaking with the guard‘s G2Viola said, “I felt like I came in with the wrong palette. I was too big, I was too black. My voice was too deep.’

Her arrival at art school came after a difficult upbringing. Viola said she was bullied as a child because of the poverty in her family.

She talked about her childhood — where she lived in Rhode Island — in her best-selling memoir, Finding Me, which was released in April.

Viola said that when the pipes froze in her home, she and her siblings were unable to clean themselves.

She said they wet the bed because they were too scared to go to the rat-infested toilet at night and go to school because they smelled of urine, only to get bullied even more.

Viola and her siblings were victims of sexual assault by neighborhood relatives, babysitters and “dirty old men.”

Their parents were too busy to survive, to protect them, although she has since forgiven and reconciled with her mother and father.

Now a worldwide success, having starred in films like The Help, The First Lady and now Fences, Viola says she wants to use her “power” to help other “Black women.”

She said: “What’s in my power to change is to show people that we are more than the stamp that people have put on black women.

‘We are sexual, we are desirable, we can be smart, we are much wider and our identity is not defined by our gaze. I can change that. I can change the way black women are seen in the industry to some extent.”

The Hollywood star’s latest role, The Woman King, is the true story of a fierce group of female warriors who protected a West African kingdom.

Set in the 1820s, Davis leads the cast and plays the role of Nanisca, a general who trains the next generation of all-female warriors to fight their enemies.

It features an all-black cast with Thuso Mbedu, Lashana Lynch, Sheila Atim and John Boyega starring alongside Viola.

She said Sky News that she can’t ‘wait for roles’ to come to her or she’ll be pushed into ‘those stereotypical’ roles and won’t be the ‘artist I’ve dreamed of’.

Viola explained, “If I waited for the kind of rolls to come to me, I’d roll out. You know, I would be relegated to those kinds of stereotypical roles.

“But because I’m in the body of a 57-year-old dark black woman with big lips and wide nose, I’ve had to push the button or I’ll never be the artist I’ve always dreamed I could be.” to be.’