She tells her extraordinary journey filled with poverty, love, hatred, racism, and achievements in her life in this book.

Viola Davis on Hollywood: 'You either have to be a Black version of a white ideal, or you have to be white' ". Viola could have done well in many areas, but the acting bug bit her when she saw Cicely Tyson in 'The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.Instead she simply tells the facts - the truth - the ugly stories — unapologetic stories from early childhood to present day. Next, she attended the Juilliard School for four years, [22] [23] and was a member of the school's Drama Division "Group 22" (1989–93). From 2014 to 2020, she played lawyer Annalise Keating in the ABC drama series How to Get Away with Murder, for which she became the first black actress to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 2015. She received critical acclaim, with film critic Eric Kohn of IndieWire writing, that the film "largely belongs to Davis.

He looked and looked and looked from one white boy to another, frightened and struggling to find a way to hide the truth of what I had just said. Viola’s childhood was tough- and it wasn’t just that her family was poor- but that she lived in a home where substance abuse and violence prevailed. She played minor roles in film and television in the late 1990s and early 2000s, before earning the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Tonya in the 2001 Broadway production of August Wilson's King Hedley II.In 2016, Davis reprised her role as Rose Maxson for the film adaptation of Fences directed by and starring Denzel Washington. So finding out she would be gifting us with a deep memoir of her childhood to her present day life was amazing.

She is the winner of an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, and two Tony Awards, and in 2021 she won a Screen Actors Guild award for her role in ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’. Because of this, during my daily runs for my life, I would usually take my shoes off, hold them in my hands, and run in bare feet. Finding Me is a raw and honest memior about growing up in abject poverty with an abusive and alcoholic father.Davis also won two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series in 2014 and 2015. I see people-the way they walk, talk, laugh, and grieve, and their silence-in a way that is hyperfocused because of my past. Davis won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her role as Rose Maxson in the Broadway revival of August Wilson's play Fences.

I feel connected to her and to all the women, of any color, of any biological nature, who fight every day for the birthright to be themselves. Surviving child sexual abuse/incest and coping with systemic racism to become an Oscar winning actress. I do not consume either on a large scale so I was unaware of the lack of respect for those that often did theater. She is a true testament to perseverance while also acknowledging how detrimental it can be to refuse to let go, forgive, and heal from the past. At the age of forty-seven Viola got one of her best known roles, playing Annalise Keating in the television series 'How to Get Away With Murder.She won another Drama Desk Award for her work in a 2004 off-Broadway production of Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage. That same year, she starred alongside Chadwick Boseman, his final onscreen performance, as the titular character in the biographical drama Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, based on the 1982 play of the same name and directed by George C. In 2020, Davis served as an executive producer and appeared in the documentary film Giving Voice, following students entering the August Wilson monologue competition for a chance to compete on Broadway. This was one more piece of trauma I was experiencing—my clothes, my hair, my hunger, too—and my home life being the big daddy of them all. But when she saw Cecily Tyson on TV, she was inspired to take up acting, first succeeding in small sketches at school and later earning a college scholarship.