Inspiring Must-Read Remarkable Story of Viola Davis in “Finding Me”

In “Finding Me: A Memoir,” the extraordinary Viola Davis fearlessly shares her transformative journey from a childhood marked by poverty and adversity to becoming one of the most acclaimed actresses of our time. This riveting memoir is a testament to Davis’ unwavering resilience and the power of self-discovery.

Continue reading to embark on an unforgettable journey through Viola Davis’ life, as she candidly reveals the challenges, triumphs, and profound life lessons that shaped her into the iconic figure she is today.

Genres

Biography and Memoir, Social Sciences, African American Demographic Studies, Actor & Entertainer Biographies, Black & African American Biographies, Adult, Feminism, Cultural, Autobiography, Inspirational, Personal Growth, Celebrity Biography, African American Literature, Women’s Biography, Overcoming Adversity, Self-Discovery, Empowerment

“Finding Me: A Memoir” is a deeply personal account of Viola Davis’ life, tracing her path from a poverty-stricken upbringing in Rhode Island to her rise as a celebrated Hollywood actress. Davis candidly shares the struggles she faced growing up, including the pervasive racism, domestic violence, and the constant battle for survival. Despite the odds stacked against her, Davis found solace in her passion for acting and her unwavering determination to succeed.

Throughout the memoir, Davis reflects on the pivotal moments and influential individuals who shaped her journey. She delves into her experiences as a student at Juilliard, her early days in theater, and her breakthrough roles in films like “Doubt” and “Fences.” Davis also opens up about her personal life, including her marriage, motherhood, and the challenges of balancing family and career.

With raw honesty and vulnerability, Davis explores the complexities of identity, the impact of trauma, and the ongoing struggle for self-acceptance. She shares the lessons learned from her triumphs and failures, emphasizing the importance of embracing one’s authentic self and persevering in the face of adversity.

Review

“Finding Me: A Memoir” is a captivating and emotionally charged read that showcases Viola Davis’ exceptional storytelling abilities. Davis’ writing is raw, honest, and deeply introspective, inviting readers into the most intimate aspects of her life. Her vivid descriptions and powerful prose bring her experiences to life, making the reader feel as though they are walking alongside her on this transformative journey.

One of the standout aspects of this memoir is Davis’ unflinching honesty in addressing the challenges and obstacles she faced. She does not shy away from the painful realities of her past, including the racism, poverty, and abuse that marked her childhood. Instead, she confronts these experiences head-on, using them as a catalyst for growth and self-discovery.

Davis’ journey is one of resilience, determination, and the power of believing in oneself. Her story serves as a reminder that no matter how difficult the circumstances may be, it is possible to overcome them and achieve one’s dreams. Through her own example, Davis inspires readers to embrace their authentic selves, confront their fears, and pursue their passions with unwavering dedication.

While the memoir is deeply personal, it also touches on broader themes of identity, representation, and the challenges faced by marginalized communities in the entertainment industry. Davis’ insights and reflections on these issues are thought-provoking and provide a valuable perspective on the need for greater diversity and inclusion.

Overall, “Finding Me: A Memoir” is a must-read for anyone seeking inspiration, guidance, or a deeper understanding of the human experience. Viola Davis’ story is a testament to the strength of the human spirit and the transformative power of self-discovery. This memoir is not only a captivating read but also a powerful tool for personal growth and empowerment.

Introduction: Be moved and inspired by Viola Davis’s incredible life story.

Finding Me (2022) is the highly anticipated memoir from Oscar-, Tony-, and Emmy-award winning actress Viola Davis. Davis is unafraid to share the rawest, most intimate details of her life story, from the brutal hardship of her childhood on Rhode Island, through her tenacious years as a Broadway stage actor, to her arrival into the upper echelons of Hollywood celebrity.

Winning an Academy Award is, for any film actor, the pinnacle of accomplishment. Viola Davis won her Academy Award for best supporting actress in 2017, for the role of Rose Maxson in the movie Fences. Poised and polished, she delivered her acceptance speech on the stage of Los Angeles’s Dolby Theatre, wearing a crimson evening gown, clasping the gold statuette tightly in one hand: the epitome of a wildly successful actor and woman.

Hundreds of celebrity audience members watched the speech, as did millions of at-home viewers. But few of these people would have guessed what it had taken for Davis to get there – how hard she’d had to work, how many obstacles and traumas she’d had to overcome on the road to stardom.

Davis is finally sharing that story. And she’s not holding back. In this summar, you’ll hear about Davis’s childhood in Rhode Island – a childhood marked by poverty, trauma, and violence, but also by her fiercely loving bond with her siblings and mother. You’ll learn about the struggle, resilience, and camaraderie of Davis’s Juilliard years in a yet-to-be-gentrified New York City. And you’ll learn how the prejudices that held Davis back in her early years continued to dog her, even as she ascended to the pinnacle of success.

In this summary, you’ll learn

• how a childhood spent in poverty emboldened Davis to find her voice;
• how Davis “hacked” her audition for the prestigious Juilliard school of acting; and
• what uber-successful showrunner Shonda Rhimes is really like to work with.

Viola’s childhood traumas continued to shape her as an adult.

In 2015, on the set of Suicide Squad, Will Smith asked Viola Davis a simple question: “Who are you?” Smith explained that even though he was successful and wealthy, even though he’d starred in mega hits like Men in Black and Independence Day, in some ways he would always be the 15-year-old boy whose girlfriend had just dumped him. And now he wanted to know who Viola was.

Viola could have answered in any number of ways, could have told him any number of pivotal stories.

For example, she could have told Smith about one night when she was fourteen years old and her mom and dad – MaMama and MaDada, as she and her five siblings called them – were fighting. Again.

MaDada, or Dan Davis, worked as a horse groomer. It was taxing work. Still, it didn’t pay well enough to keep food on the table or cover the electricity bill. And it certainly didn’t pay enough to quench MaDada’s insatiable thirst for alcohol. Viola’s MaMama – Mary Alice Davis – was the oldest of 18 children born to South Carolina sharecroppers. She’d had her first child at 15, her last child at 34, and Viola in between. MaMama did her best to shield her six children from MaDada’s drunken rages, even if it meant she was the primary target for his blows. But the series of apartments the Davis family lived in, first in South Carolina and later in Rhode Island, were tiny. Privacy was a hypothetical concept, and MaMama couldn’t shield her children from everything. Viola vividly remembers the night that her father staggered home from the bar, bleeding from a fresh stab wound in the side of his stomach, begging his wife not to call the ambulance. And the time when MaMama and MaDada were screaming at each other in the yard and MaDada yelled that his wife should tell him if he should stay or leave. Her children willed her to answer, Leave! But she sobbed for him to stay.

On this particular night, when Viola was 14, the fight was more violent than usual. MaDada wielded a glass, threatening to break it over MaMama’s head. Until now, none of the Davis children had ever intervened in their parents’ fights, for fear they would make things worse. But on this night, Viola snapped. She inserted herself between her parents and yelled for her father to stop. He didn’t. He brought the glass down on his wife’s face. Viola remembers the screams, the blood. She remembers shaking as she refused to stand down. “Give me the glass!” she screamed at her father. “Give it to me!”

And, after what seemed an agonizingly long time, MaDada gave her the glass and walked away. In that moment, Viola realized not only that her life would be a fight – she’d known that for a long time – but that she had what it would take to stand up and fight back. [pause]

She could have told Smith another story. Like the time Dianne, Viola’s sister who’d stayed in South Carolina with her maternal grandparents, appeared like a vision in the Davises’ apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island. Viola remembers that day well. Not only had her long-lost sister arrived; it was one of the few days the hot water was turned on. But Dianne, who, unlike her siblings, was wearing properly warm winter clothes and smelled of soap, was unimpressed by the unheated, rat-infested Central Falls apartment.

She whispered to the then five-year-old Viola, “You don’t want to live like this when you’re older, do you?” Viola shook her head no. Dianne told Viola that she needed to work out what she wanted to do and who she wanted to be – and fast. And that she had to work and work and work, until she was who she wanted to be, doing what she wanted to do. There was no other way to get out. Viola decided then and there that she would become somebody. The question that tugged at her insides – Am I somebody now? – would become a repeated refrain throughout her life. Am I somebody now?, she thought after graduating college, after getting accepted into Juilliard, even after winning a Tony, an Oscar, and an Emmy. It was Dianne’s advice that day that spurred Viola on; everything Viola did from then on was to satisfy that five year old, the little girl who knew she wanted something better.

But, answering Smith’s question, there was one memory in particular that leaped out at Viola. She was in the third grade. While the rest of her classmates were walking home from school, she was running. She ran because, every day, a gang of male classmates had made it their habit to chase her, calling Viola ugly, hurling the worst kinds of racial abuse at her. Usually, she made it home, out of breath, snot dripping from her nose, scared. But on this day there’d been a snowstorm. The streets were too slippery for Viola to outrun her pursuers. They caught her, threw her to the ground and beat her.

Even though she had proven herself, over and over again, even though she was starring in movies with Will Smith and had Oprah’s number in her mobile phone, at heart Viola was still that terrified, taunted eight-year-old girl. What Viola didn’t know? That little girl still had something to teach her . . . but we’ll come back to that later.

Viola’s road to success was strewn with obstacles and detours.

Have you ever heard of Joseph Campbell’s theory of the Hero’s Journey? It proposes that every heroic story follows the same basic structure. The hero faces challenges, undergoes transformations, and finally gains a new self-understanding. Viola happens to be a big fan of Campbell’s work, perhaps because her life story echoes his structure. The first stage of the hero’s journey is the Call to Adventure. And young Viola’s call to adventure came in her Rhode Island apartment. She was sitting in front of a broken television, which was wrapped in aluminum foil. That broken television acted as a table, on which a functioning television sat. Growing up, the women Viola saw on that television were mostly white and mostly blonde. But one day, she saw an actor who looked exactly like her MaMama. The actor was Cicely Tyson; the film was The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Seeing Tyson on-screen was, for Viola, the same as finally seeing a way out of the miserable apartment in Central Falls. Viola’s Call to Adventure had arrived. The adventure? Becoming an actor.

Not long after she was enchanted by Cicely Tyson on her television screen, Viola got her first big break. Central Falls Rhode Island announced a citywide talent contest. Viola and her sisters were sure that some white kids from the Theresa Landry School of Dance would win. But they didn’t care. They were going to enter anyway. They performed an original skit, based on the game shows that MaMama was addicted to watching. And they won! It didn’t matter to them that the prize was a cheap softball set, or that they’d just end up using the softball bat to chase rats out of their kitchen. They were winners. Better than winners, Viola thought. They were actors.

That talent show win wasn’t a one-off. Viola’s teachers constantly chastised her for falling asleep in class. (They might’ve had trouble staying awake, too, if they’d spent night after night with one eye open, waiting for their father to come in and start beating their mother.) Her fellow students complained that she smelt bad. (They wouldn’t have smelled so great, either, if they’d rarely had hot water and couldn’t afford soap.) But in drama lessons, Viola excelled. She was selected to join a performing-arts program called Upward Bound, for talented kids from underprivileged backgrounds. She mixed with kids who had severe disabilities and chronic health problems, and with recently arrived refugees, who told harrowing tales about bombs, murderous fighting, and refugee camps.

Compared to such hardship, Viola’s own problems, serious as they were, seemed to shrink to a more manageable size. Later, she auditioned to participate in a nationwide performing-arts contest for high-school students – a teacher had to lend her the $15 audition fee – and was selected to compete in the contest, in Florida. It was her first time flying on a plane. She was named a Promising Young Artist. On the back of her achievements in the performing arts, Viola won a full scholarship to Rhode Island College.

If it sounds like Viola’s life was on an upward trajectory – well, it was. And, at the same time, it wasn’t. At around the same time Viola was being named a Promising Young Artist, her family was evicted from their apartment. After months of unpaid rent, their landlord wanted them out. They were finally evicted after a violent altercation where MaDada attacked the landlord with a machete. Their new apartment was even more cramped. And when the authorities found out MaDada had been making a meager salary from his horse-grooming work, the Davises’ welfare was cut off. Viola’s success as a budding actor helped her see a path out of poverty. More than that, though, drama was becoming a reprieve from the painful realities of day to day life. Theater was a release. Performing was joy.

Viola wasn’t the only one of the Davis sisters with aspirations to acting. But it was the joy she found in performance that spurred her to keep chasing that dream. Her sister Dianne wanted to act, but she was too pragmatic to pursue a performance career. As Dianne told her younger sister, “I want health insurance!”

Viola wanted health insurance, too. But, more than that, she wanted to act. So she moved to New York, where she’d been accepted into the Circle in the Square Theater’s summer program. Her tuition was covered, but she needed money to live. So, during the day, she worked. She worked at a call center. She worked handing out leaflets. She assembled boxes in a factory. She lived on plain rice from the local Chinese grocery, sometimes eating canned mackerel for protein. At night, she acted. And she loved almost every minute of it. When the summer was over, she auditioned for the most prestigious drama school in the country: Juilliard.

Viola traveled from Providence, Rhode Island, where she was performing in a play, to New York for her Juilliard audition. She didn’t know auditions were a three-day process – and she had to get back to Providence to perform that night. She’d only budgeted 45 minutes of audition time. Perhaps the committee saw something special in the young Black girl who calmly told them she’d need to perform her two monologues – one as Celie in The Color Purple, the other from Moliere’s The Learned Lady – in under an hour. They rearranged their audition timetable, pulled other committee members from other auditions, and made it happen. Viola was awarded a place in the incoming class.

It’s a huge accomplishment to make it into Juilliard. Viola was incredibly proud. But she wasn’t always happy during her time there. When she arrived back in New York, and walked up six flights to an apartment she was subletting from a friend of a friend, she was shocked to find a squalid studio: a New York version of Central Falls. She started to wonder whether she’d chosen the wisest path on her hero’s journey. And while she loved the rigorous training Juilliard provided, she found the Eurocentric approach didn’t always allow room for her to express, or perform, her Blackness. She felt her light becoming dimmer, her voice becoming smaller. Shouldn’t she be shining brighter, speaking louder?

While studying, Viola won a place on a cultural tour of Africa, where she would witness living traditions of song and dance. She traveled from Banjul to Bakau, from the Gambia to West Africa. The further she traveled; the more food she shared on the floors of village huts; the more songs she learned and sung; the more she joined in the dances – dances that welcomed in joy and danced away pain and suffering – the freer and happier she felt. When she returned to New York, she hadn’t forgotten the power and magic she felt in her ancestral homeland. She wasn’t just a promising young student at Juilliard, diligently blocking scenes and learning the Alexander technique. She was a Black woman who danced to the beat of Djembe drums with Mandinka women. In Africa, Viola reconnected with her essence. She would never lose touch with it again.

With her professional ambitions fulfilled, Viola still had to reckon with past traumas.

If you’ve engaged with theater, cinema, or television over the past decade, this next bit won’t come as a spoiler: after graduating from Juilliard, and putting in time on Broadway and on tour, Viola attained the kind of stardom and acclaim that most actors only ever dream of. From theater premieres, to film festivals, to awards ceremonies, Viola has spent a lot of time standing on a stage with an audience applauding her. But there’s one stage and one audience that stands out above the rest.

Ever since Viola was a little girl, she dreamed of being an actress, standing on stage while people clapped and threw flowers at her. In 1996, on the night August Wilson’s play Seven Guitars opened on Broadway, that’s just what happened. Viola was playing the lead role, Vera. When the curtain fell, the applause was thunderous. Even better, Viola could see her parents in the front row. Her mom was in a gown, her dad in a tux. They were both so proud of their little girl. Making the moment even sweeter, Viola and her dad had begun to heal their relationship. MaDada’s drinking had slowed, and a different, more thoughtful man than the father Viola knew was beginning to emerge.

Viola was nominated for a Tony for her turn as Vera. And from here, her career went from strength to strength. Another big break came when she was cast as Mrs Miller in the film Doubt. Acting alongside luminaries like Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman, Davis was plagued with insecurity. She wasn’t a film actor; she wasn’t a big name. But her role in Doubt garnered her a Best Supporting Actress nomination, sending a clear signal that these great talents were her peers – and her equals. More film roles, and more award nominations, followed.

How was it, then, that when Will Smith posed that question – Who are you? – this accomplished, feted, famous woman still felt like an eight year old, running away from her bullies in the snow? Well, success is funny. It doesn’t automatically cancel out trauma. And fame and fortune didn’t protect Viola against the prejudices Black women face every day. In fact, being a dark-skinned Black woman in Hollywood, Viola bumped up against prejudice constantly. Despite winning critical acclaim, she didn’t have her pick of parts. The truth is, Black women rarely land leading roles – and those who do are typically light-skinned, with features and hairstyles that skew European. Viola didn’t fit that mold. Whenever she auditioned to play a conventionally attractive leading lady, she was rebuffed. For a long time, she felt she’d be playing the role of drug-addicted mother for the rest of her career. Viola may have been successful – but she hadn’t been wholly accepted.

Enter Shonda Rhimes. The showrunner had a new project, How to Get Away with Murder, and she needed to cast the lead role, Annalise Keating: a sexy, intelligent, take-no-prisoners criminal attorney. Shonda wanted Viola for Annalise. Viola was apprehensive: this role would be history-making, mold-breaking, a blow to colorism in Hollywood. But could she really do it? That eight-year-old girl inside her was causing her doubts. But Shonda coached her through and helped her find her voice. In the first season’s finale, Annalise confronts her nemesis, Ophelia Harkness, played by Cicely Tyson. The very same Cicely Tyson who inspired Viola to become an actress in the first place. At the scene’s climax, Annalise rips off her wig, proudly showing her natural hair. In that moment, Viola remembers feeling unapologetically beautiful and powerful.

In the background, behind her career and achievements, something else had been helping Viola step into her beauty and power: her relationship with producer Julius Tennon. The pair are still together – and they’re so in love that they’ve married each other in three separate ceremonies! They completed their family in 2011, adopting their daughter, Genesis.

A therapist once told Viola that the eight-year-old girl running through the snow wasn’t a victim but a survivor. Viola’s success, said the therapist, was because of that girl, not in spite of her. Viola shouldn’t push her away. She should embrace her.

At the time, Viola saw the wisdom in that therapists’ words. And yet she couldn’t embrace that girl. She wasn’t ready to feel whole within herself; she had healing left to do. Years later – thanks to How to Get Away with Murder, thanks to Julius and Genesis, and thanks to the work Viola herself put in to healing herself and her relationships with her family – Viola was finally able to turn to that little girl and follow her therapist’s advice: embrace her, thanking her for the strength and courage she had shown. In many ways, Viola still is that little girl – determined, persistent, scrappy. Only now, she’s not running away from trauma and prejudice. She’s running toward joy.

Final Summary

Viola Davis is an acclaimed, accomplished actor, but behind her success is a story of poverty, trauma, and prejudice – and a story of persistence, hope, and joy. Achieving her wildest professional dreams didn’t automatically heal Viola’s past traumas, but she’s now learned to accept and sometimes even embrace the struggles that shaped her as a Black woman and an actor.

And as a final take away, here’s some actionable advice: Artistic integrity doesn’t pay the bills.

Viola knows the struggle of being an aspiring actor better than most. Her advice? Don’t listen to well-paid A-listers when it comes to making artistic choices. They’re in the privileged position of being able to make artistic choices. If you’re in the position of needing to pay rent, book that Geico Insurance commercial! It won’t compromise your talent and it will get you paid.

About the author

VIOLA DAVIS is an internationally acclaimed actress and producer, known for her exceptional performances in television shows like ‘How to Get Away with Murder’ and movies like ‘Fences’ and ‘The Help.’ She is the winner of an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, and two Tony Awards, and in 2021 she won a Screen Actors Guild award for her role in ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’. In both 2012 and 2017, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Davis is also the founder and CEO of JuVee Productions, an artist driven production company that develops and produces independent film, theater, television, and digital content.

Table of Contents

Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1: Running
Chapter 2: My World
Chapter 3: Central Falls
Chapter 4: 128
Chapter 5: Minefield
Chapter 6: My Calling
Chapter 7: The Sisterhood
Chapter 8: Secret, Silent, Shame
Chapter 9: The Muse
Chapter 10: The Starting Block
Chapter 11: Being Seen
Chapter 12: Taking Flight
Chapter 13: The Blooming
Chapter 14: Coming Into Me
Chapter 15: The Wake-Up
Chapter 16: Harnessing Bliss
Chapter 17: There She Is
Photo Section
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher