During an ‘Evening With Viola Davis,’ the crown jewel of the Black Perspectives film event held during the Chicago International Film Festival, Viola Davis, told interviewer Regina Taylor and the audience that she felt ‘under attack’ for her role in The Help.
“I felt like I was under attack, and I knew it was going to happen,” Davis told the audience. “I’m smart enough to know that it was going to happen, after all, me and Octavia Spencer were playing maids in 1963 in Mississippi with broken dialects and we weren’t looking cute. I never experienced that before in my life, having to defend my choices as an artist.”
In the video, Davis tells how she handled the pressure.
