Viola Davis’ Inspirational Rise to Icon Status

From embracing your imperfections to always being grateful, the actress and producer shares her tips for a better life

Eric Spitznagel,

AARP

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Published September 12, 2024

Viola Davis wearing a bright yellow dress with arms outstretched in a pose that makes her look like a butterfly

Known for her powerful and nuanced performances, Viola Davis one of the most acclaimed actresses of her generation.

Arnold Jerocki/Getty Images

What’s a woman to do when she reaches EGOT status, the quadruple threat of winning an Emmy (for her lead role in How to Get Away With Murder); Grammy (for best narration of an audiobook for her memoir, Finding Me), Oscar (for her supporting role in Fences) and Tony (for her stage roles in King Hedley II and Fences)?

Well, if you’re Viola Davis, you set your sights on becoming the next president of the United States. But don’t get too excited — Davis, 59, isn’t actually running for office. She’s just playing the president in an upcoming thriller from Amazon Studios, G20, which doesn’t yet have a release date. Her version of the presidency isn’t just signing bills and delivering speeches; she’ll be kicking butt and saving lives when terrorists attack the G20 Summit.

She’s also cowriting a novel with bestselling author James Patterson. It follows a female judge who has to make a decision that will likely have “seismic repercussions” — not just for her small county, but possibly the nation. And she’s presenting an award at this Sunday’s Emmy ceremony and speaking next month at an annual conference in Philadelphia devoted to women in tech.

As if that’s not enough, she’s also a mom. Davis is private about her family life, especially Genesis, the daughter she adopted in 2011 with husband Julius Tennon. But last July, she shared a photo on Instagram of her and Genesis with the heartwarming caption: “Me and my soon to be 14 yr old. Love her soooo much.”

Davis, seen here with Conrad Ricamora, starred in the ABC drama "How to Get Away With Murder."

Nicole Wilder/ABC/Courtesy Everett Collection

AARP has spoken with Davis several times throughout her illustrious career, and as we wait (impatiently) for her next projects, we look back at the lessons she’s shared with us about life, aging and how to be a more decent human being.

Never stop being grateful

It wasn’t until Davis was in her 30s that she realized, “I’m not poor anymore.” But the little girl who’s hungry, who’s dreaming of a house and three meals a day, is always with her. “Sometimes that girl is literally sitting in my Jacuzzi, going, ‘Wow! Look at the yard! Look at the rabbits in the garden! We have cottontails all over the place.’ ” Davis doesn’t take anything for granted. “As kids, we often didn’t have bus fare,” she says, “so to have a car today — it’s unbelievable to me.”

Find your leaf pads

Davis is a longtime fan of Anne Lamott, 70, the author of bestselling books like Somehow: Thoughts on Love and Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. She was particularly affected by a story that Lamott told once, a metaphor about a friend giving her a leaf pad, meaning a safe place to land. “That leaf pad was enough to carry her to the next leaf pad, and then carry her to the next leaf pad,” Davis remembers. “That’s how she moved through her life, through her pain, through everything, until she got to a landing. And that’s what it was for me.… When someone loves you, and sees more in you than you see in yourself, you cannot put a price on that. That was every single one of my teachers in high school, in the Upward Bound program, in Summer in the City. Those were my leaf pads.”

Embrace your imperfections

Like any of us, Davis can be self-critical — which can be especially easy to do when you’re under the constant spotlight of Hollywood. “I used to say the imperfections have to go,” she told us. “I would go to bed thinking of how I could change them, and would wake up and go through the whole cycle again. The other day I got on that dang old scale and it did not say what I wanted it to say. I tried to get another scale, but couldn’t find it.” But then Davis stopped herself and realized that she was beating herself up unnecessarily. “My inner therapist — which is the best — said, ‘You’re good exactly as you are.’ “

It’s OK to be unlikable

Davis hasn’t exactly appeared in a lot of fluff — check out some of her more memorable roles over the years — but she has portrayed a few characters that weren’t as richly complex as she’d prefer. “I’ve played warm and fuzzy to the point that it’s made me nauseous,” she told us. “We’re not always likable. Sometimes we’re mean, and we’re mean to the people we love.” She emphasized this point by putting her fingers together, as if in prayer. “I reserve the right to be a mess and completely unlikable.”

Leave the acrobatic sex to somebody else

Just when Davis thought she’d experienced it all, in 2015 she was cast in the hit ABC drama How to Get Away With Murder, and for the first time in her career, she was asked to do a sex scene. Davis told us that she’s not a fan of sex on-screen, insisting the scenes are “almost never realistic.” After shooting one, she made a pronouncement to her producers: “No more sex on walls! I was sore after that. I’m not 20 anymore, and, anyway, who does that?”

7 Things You Didn’t Know About Viola Davis

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Eric Spitznagel is a features writer for AARP Members Edition. He was also a co-founding editor of The Arrow, AARP’s newsletter for Gen X men. He's been a regular contributor to magazines like Vanity Fair, Men's Health, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times, among others.

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