Annalise makes a deadly enemy in season 2 shocker!
Viola Davis reveals what it’s like to be an award-winning black actress, thanks to her show How To Get Away With Murder.
How To Get Away With Murder (2014current) is notorious for having more twists and turns than a game of Snakes & Ladders. Between complicated murder cases, dirty secrets and everyone lying to everyone else, there is a lot going on. And it’s held together by 50-year-old lead star Viola Davis, a two-time Oscar nominee and Emmy winner (the 2015 Outstanding Lead Actress In A Drama Series) for her role as criminal law professor Annalise Keating. And like her character, Viola is no shrinking violet… You’re an established star in film. Many were surprised to see you on television… A part of me is always surprised at everyone’s reaction to me going to TV. I did have a movie career. You saw me in a lot of movies, but you didn’t see me a lot in the movies. I was never the leading woman. I was usually the eighth or ninth lead. I did eight days of work on Prisoners (2013), I did one day of work on Antwone Fisher (2002), I did two weeks on Doubt (2008). That was one scene. Eat, Pray, Love (2010) was probably five or six days. That was my career in film. People saw me in one or two scenes. So when I was offered the lead role on television, it was an opportunity for me as an actress to work in a role that’s usually not afforded to women of colour, my hue, my age. I always say that you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who would be my type in a role like Annalise Keating and what I’ve learnt is to explore a whole new side of myself as an actress that hasn’t been challenged. I feel like an actor for the very first time.
Has the show changed your life? It has. It’s changed my life because I now get to go home at night. Usually in film you’re away on location for months at a time. Where are things going for Annalise this season? I know very little in terms of plot. I’m more interested in character. I know where it’s going in terms of them exploring what makes her tick, what’s behind her pathology – which I can’t tell you. I don’t want structure in my character. I’m rebelling against everything that I’ve been given before on page, which is people who are very steady, very straight. You know exactly who they are. As soon as you sit down, you’re like, “Okay, she’s sassy, strong, nurturing – adjectives that we associate with black women.” I’m happy that she has a foundation that you’ll see, but everything else… you don’t know where it’s going to land and that is who we are in life. You don’t know who you are until the situation presents itself. Were you shocked with some of the things you saw at the beginning of the season? Yeah, that I was shot. I was shocked at that! I wasn’t shocked by her bisexuality. I think she comes from a background of sexual abuse… of trauma. I don’t think that she necessarily is one of those people who associates sex traditionally. I think she goes towards who makes her feel good and safe. How do you feel about winning the Emmy
and where do you keep it? I usually never look at my awards. Any award I’ve won, I’ve put on the shelf and I never look at it again, but that one I look at because my husband [actor Julius Tennon, 62] puts it on a different table it seems like every day [Laughs]. I understand that I made history with that win [as the first African American winner], but I don’t think of that when I wake up, that I made history, that I won an Emmy. I think of my short-comings, about how far I have to go. I think about the task ahead of me in whatever scene I have to do that day. I think about how I could rewrite it to make it better. I fear that someone’s going to find me out for the hack I am. I think about how I am going to spend more time with my daughter Genesis (4). I’m constantly moving and evolving and thinking of a new challenge, thinking of a new issue to face up to.