Sorrow & Triumph
THE EMMY WINNER OPENS UP ABOUT OVERCOMING POVERTY AND ABUSE
When Viola Davis wants to get away from it all, she goes to Hawaii. “It’s quiet — it’s Zen,” she tells Closer. “When I’m off, I don’t want any noise, I don’t want any agenda, and that is absolutely my favorite place.”
It’s a long way from where she grew up in Central Falls, R.I., geographically and otherwise. “My childhood was spent in abject poverty,” Viola says. “I’ve stolen for food, I’ve jumped in huge garbage bins with maggots for food.” Raised in a ratinfested house with no plumbing, the actress — one of six kids — was also sexually assaulted as a child.
“Going over to a friend’s house for a birthday party at the age of 7, there was always someone there who touched you,” she reveals. The daughter of a horse trainer and a maid, Viola found an escape through acting, but her early experiences shaped the woman she is today. “It made her kinder,” a friend tells Closer. “She’s always in a state of gratitude and grace because she knows exactly where she came from and where she is now.”
And that’s a very good place. Viola, 51, became the first black woman to win an Emmy as best actress in a drama last year for her role as a morally ambiguous law professor in ABC’s
hit How to Get Away With Murder. Now she’s stirring Oscar talk with her performance opposite director Denzel Washington in Fences, coming out in December. (She won a 2010 Tony for the same role.)
She’s equally happy at home as she is at work. “We are at a point in our lives where we are more in love than when we got married,” she tells Closer of husband Julius Tennon, an actor she wed in 2003. “I love his heart. He always has a heart for people, and that’s why I fell in love with him.”
Viola has made room in her heart for Julius’ two sons from previous relationships as well as for daughter Genesis, whom the couple adopted as an infant in 2011. “She’s 100 percent determined to give Genesis the opposite experience of her own childhood,” says her friend. “A refrigerator full of food is a priority for her.”
So is helping others deal with similar challenges to the ones she faced during her childhood. “Viola wants to be inspirational to young people, to let them know they can over- come anything and follow their dream,” her friend says.
The star hasn’t forgotten her past, but she has “forgiven her parents for her dysfunctional childhood,” says her friend. “She’s trying to help her five siblings and their children get on their own paths and fulfill their dreams.”
She’s also channeled her anguish into her work. “Viola draws on the pain and the fear of her childhood for every role she plays,” her friend says. “She has a deep well of sorrow and happiness.”
These days, she has more of the latter, thanks to her growing self-awareness. “I am a proponent of women stepping into their authentic selves and no longer letting society define who they are,” she says. “That’s a huge part of why I do what I do.” — Bruce Fretts
“I believe that the privilege of a lifetime is truly being who you are.”
— Viola