A Quote by Viola Davis
We're in crisis mode as black actresses. It's not only in the sheer number of roles that are offered and that are out there, but the quality of the roles. The quality - and therein lies the problem. We're in deprivation mode because me, Alfre and Phylicia, we're in the same category. Whereas if you take a Caucasian actress, you have the one who are the teens, in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s - they're all different. There are roles for each of them. But you only have two or three categories for black actresses.
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People often ask me why I don't take up more heroine-oriented roles. My question is, 'Where are these roles?' I really appreciate actresses who sign only films with meaty roles. However, there aren't too many of them. The industry is simply male-dominated.
Until recently, Hollywood offered only a handful of roles to actors of color. The majority of my opportunities have fallen into two categories: Scary Black and Funny Black.
I know, I pick up the roles other actresses don’t want [laughs]. When there’s movies where there are two sisters and one’s the uglier sister, there’s always no actress that wants to go for it. I’m like, why not! They’re the best roles!
In America, I am brown; I'm 'of colour', so I would be offered Latin roles, and I've fought against that. I don't want to be put in a category, to be just offered the same sort of thing. For me, it's all about different roles, telling the stories of the great writers.
For a long time, way back in the ’30s and ’40s, there were fabulous female roles. Bette Davis and all those people had incredible, great roles. After World War II, something happened where it was not only "get out of the factories," but "get out of the movies." That's when women's roles started to really [change].
You absolutely feel, as a black actress, that you've got to ride the wave because there's just so few roles. I hate to play that card, but it's the truth. There's not a lot of roles.
There aren't enough meaty roles for actresses. Also, most actresses aren't ready to take risks.
You can't be perceived as 'the black actress who doesn't get the same kind of roles as the white actress.' You gotta run the same race. You gotta give the same quality of performances. You gotta have the same standard of excellence, even though people know that you're coming to the race in a deficit. That's just what life is about.
Once you get into your 40s, you're no longer leading-lady age. Generally, those roles get offered to women in their 20s and 30s.
This film [ Into the Forest], it was special for that reason, because as an actress, you usually don't get to work with other actresses because you are usually up for the same roles, and you don't get to hang out that much.
All of us are playing roles, and there's nothing wrong with playing roles because we have to live in this world - the problem is only when we believe in those roles.
In a very real sense, there are only two roles in organisations: customers and suppliers. Everybody functions simultaneously in both roles, whether inside or outside the organisation the essence of good business, therefore, is the quality of the relationship between customer and supplier.
I only get involved with roles that I find intriguing, in top quality productions regardless of the medium. I try not to focus on the format itself and concentrate instead, on finding roles that challenge and entertain me as an artist.
It's so important to create roles and characters and projects that feature black people in a way that's not specifically targeted toward the niche market, which is, like, a black movie is created and it's produced and pitched so that only black people will watch it ... I want to see dynamic characters and roles that everyone wants to watch.
I wanted to play roles which offered new ways of viewing black women and black people in general- and I have done that. And I have always, whether I needed to pay the rent or not, I've always turned down roles which I thought were stereotypical. And so when I look at my body of work in that respect, I am really happy. Because I feel my work does say something positive and that was what I always set out to do.
The acting world is tough. It's competitive - and even more so for women - but actually, for black female actresses, the issue isn't really that it's competitive: it's that there just aren't enough roles for them in film and TV.
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