During the Cannes Film Festival, actress viola Davis participated in a Women In Motion conversation where she discussed Hollywood’s perception of Black actors. She also talked about how the number of roles she can play still remains limited due to her skin color… even despite being such a big star.
While speaking on that topic, the Oscar and Emmy-winning also revealed that a director once called her by his maid’s name. “I had a director who did that to me. He said, ‘Louise!’ I knew him for 10 years and he called me Louise and I find out that it’s because his maid’s name is Louise,” Davis shared. “I was maybe around 30 at the time, so it was a while ago. But what you have to realize is that those micro-aggressions happen all the time.”
Further, into the conversation, Viola Davis looked back on her Emmy-winning role in “How To Get Away With Murder” and how it broke down barriers for representation on network TV. However, Davis said the show sadly didn’t really open the door for other women who look just like her: “I know that when I left ‘How to Get Away With Murder’ that I don’t see a lot of dark skin women in lead roles on TV and not even in streaming services,” Davis said while speaking with reporter Elizabeth Wagmeister. “And that ties into ideology and ethos and mentality, and that’s speaking in the abstract. Why aren’t you hiring a dark skin woman when she walks in the room and you say she blows you away? Create space and storytelling for her so when she thrives she’s not thriving despite her circumstance but thriving because of her circumstance,” Variety quotes.
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Speaking more about thriving, Davis admits that being passed on because of her skin does breaks her heart and makes her angry. She said, “A lot of it is based in race. It really is,” Davis added of being rejected in the past. “Let’s be honest. If I had my same features and I were five shades lighter, it would just be a little bit different. And if I had blonde hair, blue eyes and even a wide nose, it would be even a little bit different than what it is now. We could talk about colorism, we could talk about race. It pisses me off, and it has broken my heart — on a number of projects, which I won’t name.”
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