Viola Davis Says a Director Once Called Her by His Maid’s Name

cannes, france may 18 viola davis attends the screening of top gun maverick during the 75th annual cannes film festival at palais des festivals on may 18, 2022 in cannes, france photo by gisela schobergetty images

Gisela SchoberGetty Images

To Viola Davis, an incident in which a director mistakenly called her by his maid’s name exemplifies Hollywood’s ongoing and pervasive problem with racial equity.

The Oscar- and Emmy-winning actress recalled the indicative moment during a Women in Motion conversation with Variety and Kering at the 75th Cannes Film Festival earlier this week.

“I had a director who did that to me. He said, ‘Louise!’ I knew him for 10 years and he called me Louise and I find out that it’s because his maid’s name is Louise,” Davis said, per Variety. “I was maybe around 30 at the time, so it was a while ago. But what you have to realize is that those micro-aggressions happen all the time.”

Davis went on to talk about her critically acclaimed show, How to Get Away with Murder. For six seasons, the Shonda Rhimes-produced series was one of the only shows on television that had a dark-skinned Black woman serve as the lead character. But, Davis said, the show didn’t lead to more onscreen opportunities for other women who look like her.

“I know that when I left How to Get Away with Murder that I don’t see a lot of dark skin women in lead roles on TV and not even in streaming services,” she said. “And that ties into ideology and ethos and mentality, and that’s speaking in the abstract. Why aren’t you hiring a dark skin woman when she walks in the room and you say she blows you away? Create space and storytelling for her so when she thrives she’s not thriving despite of her circumstance but thriving because of her circumstance.”

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Davis added that she wants to create that space through her production company, JuVee Productions, which she and husband Julius Tennon founded.

“If I wanted to play a mother whose family lives in a low income neighborhood and my son was a gang member who died in a drive by shooting, I could get that made,” Davis continued. “If I played a woman who was looking to recreate herself by flying to Nice and sleeping with five men at the age of 56—looking like me, I’m going to have a hard time pushing that one, even as Viola Davis. … People can’t reconcile the Blackness with the spiritual awakening and the sexuality. It’s too much for them.”

The actress said that previous Hollywood rejections, in which she was passed over for her race or for not being “pretty enough,” still stings.

“A lot of it is based in race. It really is,” she said. “Let’s be honest. If I had my same features and I were five shades lighter, it would just be a little bit different. And if I had blonde hair, blue eyes and even a wide nose, it would be even a little bit different than what it is now. We could talk about colorism, we could talk about race. It pisses me off, and it has broken my heart—on a number of projects, which I won’t name.”

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