A Quote by Viola Davis

I sort of feel like that's the most revolutionary thing we can do with our narrative for me as Black people is to show that we are just like you. — © Viola Davis
I sort of feel like that's the most revolutionary thing we can do with our narrative for me as Black people is to show that we are just like you.
In America, a black man has to feel like he's God just to make it a little bit when white people can just feel human. They can just be themselves, but for me, I feel we have to start instilling that back into our people. That pride. That black power. That privilege to be alive.
When you are trying to get a shot, you can't be pleasing everybody. And I tend to be sort of collaborative and a bit of a pleaser. And when I'm directing, people just sort of call me Black Hat Gabriela. Because suddenly they're like, "What happened to you?" Because I stop listening. And I feel strident. I feel rude. And I feel un-collaborative.
I just feel like 'Love Island' is like a fantasy TV show. We're showing our, sort of, in my opinion, a comedy ideal of what paradise is like.
I feel like a lot of the stuff coming out right now just feels really inauthentic to me. But apparently, people don't seem to see through it. And this makes me sound bitter, but it's just my perspective. I'm not bitter. I just feel like there's a lot of stuff that doesn't feel like it's coming from a place of any sort of integrity. It just doesn't feel like it's coming from the heart, basically. It just feels like it's being produced because people know it's a formula that will work, or it's easily digestible and fun to look at.
I'm always thinking about what a black lady would think about what I'm doing, just because I feel like they have such great taste, mostly because as black women, we've spent a lot of time downloading what a white male narrative is, so in my head, I'm like, 'If a black woman likes it, if she responds to it, then it's probably pretty damn great.'
The most important thing for me is the thing I strive for. But I also hope when I play my songs for people - adult, children, mostly children - that they feel mighty, they feel noble, they feel like warriors. And they feel like they can do anything in the world because that's how I feel.
Oh, I was sobbing, like, so bad when baby arrived. Like, I don't think people have seen a man sobbing like that. It was awful, but in the most joyful way. I mean, I was picking that baby up and putting him on me. And the baby, like, halfway opened his eyes and it just made me feel like, 'Oh my god, this is the most incredible thing.'
I'm doing another pilot about a black Democratic pundit who's married to a white Republican pundit. And the purpose of me wanting to do that show - and ABC sort of supported me in the way they did - is because I feel like, you know, the political system is like an old married couple.
I do this sort of thing where, even for my own shows, I like to supply my own fingerprint of creativity. Not just ideas, technical things: offering model data, creating visuals for my stage show myself, babysitting renders, learning that technology as I go. That's what makes me feel like an artist.
I didn't expect to feel pathos for the villains in our show. I feel quite moved in several of our episodes; I never realized that a show like 'Motive,' which aims for a broad appeal, could have that sort of emotional impact.
When I brought 'Sex and the City' to HBO, I wanted to do something independent, where I could be like, 'I don't care if anybody watches this thing. Just let me do something that I would love to see.' Honestly, the success of 'Sex and the City' was what was most surprising to me. It was sort of like the anti-TV-show in my mind.
I have that sort of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David/George Costanza thing where people are like, "How did you feel writing such an unlikable character?" And I'm like, "It's me! I based him on myself!" There are certain moments where they do feel like unwittingly personal attacks.
'This thing I feel, I can't name it straight out but it seems important, do you feel it too?' — this sort of direct question is not for the squeamish. For one thing, it's perilously close to 'Do you like me? Please like me,' which you know quite well that 99% of all the interhuman manipulation and bullshit gamesmanship that goes on goes on precisely because the idea of saying this sort of thing straight out is regarded as somehow obscene.
The black experience for me has been very interesting. Some days, I wake up, and I feel really black. Some days, I'm like, 'This is me. I'm black. Black Lives Matter. Black pride. Look at my cocoa skin.' I just feel it's my being.
I think that, for so much of our matriculation through American society, black people sort of feel like outsiders.
I usually just pick a genre of movie that I feel like saluting and then go off and come up with something that I can sort of pay homage to. That's the great thing about our show is we've sort of created a landscape for 'Psych' where we're kind of allowed to go off and give shout-outs to movies that we love, genres that we love.
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