Life’s Work: An Interview with Viola Davis

Born on a former plantation in South Carolina and raised in Rhode Island, Viola Davis grew up amid extreme poverty, bullying, racism, and abuse. She found her way out through acting and graduated from Juilliard. Her breakthrough film role came in 2008, in Doubt, for which she earned the first of her four Oscar nominations. She has since starred in The Help, Fences, How to Get Away with Murder (on TV), Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and The Woman King. Davis is also an outspoken human rights advocate and the author of the memoir Finding Me.