Cue the Kleenex. Viola Davis just made a major play for our hearts.
In case you missed it, on Friday, March 3, the Oscar-winning actress took part in #FlashbackFriday on Instagram, where she posted the “only picture” she has from her childhood. Sharing an excerpt from a recent interview with People magazine, the 51-year-old wrote:
“The only picture I have of my childhood is the picture of me in kindergarten. I have this expression on my face — it’s not a smile, it’s not a frown. I swear to you, that’s the girl who wakes up in the morning and who looks around her house and her life saying, ‘I cannot believe how God has blessed me.’ I was the kind of poor where I knew right away I had less than everyone around me,” she said. “Our environment, our physical space reflected our income.” At home, “the boards were coming off the walls,” she continued of her impoverished upbringing in Central Falls, Rhode Island. Meanwhile, the family endured “shoddy plumbing and no phone and no food and rats and all of that. That very much was visible to me.”
“I would jump in trash bins with maggots looking for food, and I would steal from the corner store because I was hungry. I never had any kids come to my house because my house was a condemned building, it was boarded up, it was infested with rats. I was one of those kids who were poor and knew it,” she explained to the publication.
Of course, fast forward decades later, and Davis has come a long way. The first Black woman to be nominated three times for her performance in cinema, on Sunday, Feb. 26, Davis nabbed the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Rose Maxson, in Fences — achieving what’s called the triple crown of the industry, by adding her accolade to past Emmy (for her work in “How to Get Away With Murder”) and Tony Awards (for “King Hedley II” and the Broadway production of “Fences”) — an honor only 22 other actors have accomplished.
Now one of Hollywood’s biggest names, Davis, who as a child held tight to the dream of “just wanting to be good at something,” revealed to People that rearing her own daughter Genesis, 6, in an age of “entitlement” is her biggest fear. “You just listed my number one fear, which is entitlement,” said Davis of keeping her child grounded. “I never had a house; Genesis has a house. I do shop at Target, I buy all her clothes at Target or H&M. And maybe, if I’m feeling really good, Nordstrom Rack.”
According to Davis, though she and her husband, Julius Tennon, a fellow actor she married in 2003, parent in a “tough” but “loving” way, their little girl is held “accountable for everything,” even at her young age. “Julius is really tough. He has two beautiful children and seven grandkids,” says the “How to Get Away with Murder” star. “I came into a relationship where he already had children and grandchildren and raised his kids on his own, so he’s tough — he toes the line, but in a very loving way.”
Davis continued, “He holds her accountable. Me, not so much — I’m the softie. Really, entitlement. Listen, there are poor kids who are entitled. So I pray.”
