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Buy your car today on Car. Oh Vana. Delivery fees may apply. This is Lee Cowan. Viola Davis, actor, producer.
and now novelist. She's written a thriller with famed author James Patterson. And talking with Sunday mornings. Tracy Smith. Even before this novel, writing has been an important part of your life, an important part of your acting.
You write bios for your characters? Yeah, well, all actors write bios for their characters because we're. trying to figure out who they are. That's the first thing they teach you in acting school is to write a bio. It's like, what's your character's favorite color?
What's their first memory? What was a childhood like? You know, and so you write and you write and you write and you write, and somewhere in there, something clicks. Certainly, I've done that with especially my character in doubt. You know, that was the mollywopper of them all.
You wrote how many pages of a book? Like a hundred pages, yeah. I'm now in the midst of doing another character now, and I think that I'm just at 30 or 40 pages, but there's more to come. We should talk about the character in doubt. That was less than a 10-minute performance, but you wrote 100 pages.
Yeah, I mean. The time on screen has nothing to do with the sort of life of the character. The life of the character, you're getting just a slice of it. I need to get her whole life in order to show her in eight minutes, you know, you know, what does she want? What's her driving need?
You know, what does she live for? All of those things. And those, that requires a lot of work. You know what? You're almost like.
a psychologist and a private investigator when you're an actor. How else can you dig into a human being other than to write a bio? It's not like we're. People who give it away easily. People don't necessarily walk through life telling you exactly who they are.
And so then, when you're given a character, how do you figure out who they are? How much do you think that training helped you, your acting training and writing those bios, in creating these characters? It plays a lot into it. First of all, I mean, only because you know what questions to ask first. The question that you ask is, okay, um, what's your name?
Mary Stone.
Okay, where were you born? I was born in Bullock County, Alabama. What year were you born? were your parents. Was your first memory?
See, so that in and of itself, asking those questions, and then putting pen to paper. I think that lays a great foundation for being a writer.
Now, Yeah. I wanted to be a writer when I was nine years old. It was my fantasy. I don't know why, maybe because I love the Bopsy twin books. And they helped me to escape a very challenging childhood.
Words helped me to escape. The imagination of those twins going to different countries and always involved in different mysteries. I was like, Oh, I can make a life of that.
So I had a fantasy of that when I was nine years old. And when I went to college, I sort of majored in English. And I had a little fantasy of doing that for a minute too, but I always wanted to be an actor, so they were always sort of battling each other.
So, is this kind of a childhood dream come true? I think so. It's something that I probably silently manifested. I think all the arts sometimes intertwine. I think that whenever you sort of see artists together, artists not necessarily celebrities.
artists. We're always sort of really interested and excited about what. makes us human. All of us are. You know, it sort of turns us on.
We're not turned off by an ugly story. But we're always sort of in search of truth. And we're never afraid of it. We swim in it almost, you know? And um I think that that's was Probably me and James Patterson's connection too.
You know, him as a writer, me as an actress, we joined together, but we both had the same goal. to figure out who these human beings were and to share their stories with you? You wrote your own story so beautifully in Finding Me. How much of your own story influenced these characters? All of it.
Every single bit of my story influenced all of these characters. I feel that it is my duty to honour six-year-old Viola. It was I feel that I've been blessed in my life. Blessed with, yes, all the awards, all the accolades, but I think the biggest blessing is that I've kept six-year-old Viola alive. and she's always demanding for me not to forget her.
If I forget one part of her, I always feel the agitation of that. I can't just remember her creativity without remembering her fear. I can't Sort of think about her dimples without thinking about the fact that she always felt ugly. I have to honor her truth. And I think that that's what happens when you create characters, that you have to honor their truth.
That's where the love goes with the character. I think a lot of people mistake loving a character for making them funnier than what they are, more beautiful than what they are, more whatever, instead of meeting them exactly where they are. Because there's not one person alive. It's just my opinion. that at some point didn't feel worthy.
And they didn't feel worthy because something about them Wasn't beautiful. and was it perfect. But there's something, it's like what Brene Brown says: you're worthy. As is. Today.
Now. And so when I remember that as little Viola, I feel like it's a demand. Like with Nova it was a demand. You have to see me. You have to honor me.
And in doing that, I feel it gives people permission to do the same. I really do. I am one of those people that feels like it is that connection right there, that sort of recognition when you open a book and someone shares their truth that gives you permission to share your own truth. Because it's like me too.
So I do that with every character. Do you see young Viola in Nova? Totally. How so? Listen, I don't want to give anything away, and I'm not going to cry during this interview.
She wants to be beautiful. And she wants to be seen. That's what I see with Nova. And I think she's weighed down by so many things, it makes her feel completely invisible. I always talk about the beauty thing, I talk about that a lot.
The thing about beauty is it has no value. None. I mean, look at I look at you, you beautiful woman. but the value in a human being. is being seen for your ideas.
Your humour. Your fears, right?
So, when I say that she wants to be seen as beautiful, she wants someone to see all of those things in her. And still feel like she's beautiful. And I don't think Nova feels that. That's how I felt when I was little Viola because, you know, I was sort of rough around the edges and I was angry and I was funny, but I was creative and I was sensitive and I loved everybody who was in my life and I protected them. And I felt like I was right.
Me, Viola, was right, that I wasn't born wrong. And it's like, you know, in the absence of not sort of hearing God's voice to sort of confirm that. You know what? You made me perfect, right? And in not hearing that, I wanted evidence from other people and other things in my life.
That's Nova. That's all her. Just wanting to be seen. Yeah, I want to say my favorite line, but I don't want to make James Patterson, you know, mad. In the book.
Nova is Right. And she says, she says it in the courtroom, but it's just a line that resonates with me. She says about the boys who raped her. She says they told me I was beautiful. We search for it even in the wrong places.
you know, those sort of evidence that we're worthy. That we belong. You know, it's only later in life that you realize that sort of sense of belonging can only come from you. But before you even get on that journey, you have to heal. Right?
And you see Nova, I see so much of myself in her because there's so much she has to heal from. You healed, there's hope for Nova. Absolutely. No, but I love her. Yeah.
At the same time that I saw bits of you from reading your biography in all of these characters. Yeah. Did you also draw from the characters you've played? Um Probab If I did, it was unintentional. I always draw from life.
Here's the thing, and this is my ego speaking a little bit too. It really is. But you know, I'm not perfect. Um and my ego is that very few people draw from life. when they create.
They draw from other people's work. Life. is an endless well of ideas. That's what we are supposed to do. That is the task.
an artist. is you have to study life. You have to be an observer. They say you have to be an um observer and a thief. You do have to steal other people's work every once in a while, but you have to be an observer of life.
You know, I mean, listen, on any given day when you walk down the street and you really take the time to take people in, what do you see? Come on, you see some pretty interesting stuff. And so, if you utilize that in your work, I think that that is a gift to the audience. Who is, by the way, I always have to say this, this is extremely nerdy of me, but the audience is a part of the collaboration. It's not just me and James, it's also the audience, it's the reader.
And you have to come locked and loaded and brave. And if you're open enough, these characters will reach you. That's why I draw from life. I want to reach you. It's my way of saying I want to reach you, I want to get in there.
It reminds me of your Cecily De Mont speech where you're talking about the woman on the corner. I notice that woman on the corner, right? That's you looking at life. That's right, I do. I just want to talk about your career outside of the book for just a moment.
You've had quite a career in acting. Is there one role or character that resonated with you or Changed you the most? Absolutely, without question, Annalise Keating on how to get away with murder. And why is that? Because I did not see myself in her.
That was where we met. She almost, it's like they say, she agitated my trauma. She was more sexual than I thought that people saw me. She was messy in her sexuality. She was bold in Her confidence and yet extremely vulnerable, alcoholic.
She's all of the things that. I did not, not only did I not see in myself, that I didn't think other people saw in me. and so in order to play her, I had to believe it. And when I open that portal, That was it. She was the first character I played That led me to believe that I did not have to accept any definition that is out there in the world.
I reject it. I reject what sexy looks like. I reject what Messie looks like. and I reject it all as it pertains to me. That was the character that did it.
And the B in everyone's living room every week. You know, Thursday night lineup, you know. Um I felt was a gift. And you know what? I feel that way about my acting anyway.
That every sort of character changes you in a sort of a way. But that's the one who chi that changed me the most. 'Cause here's the thing, You don't have to be beautiful to be sexy. You don't have to be thin to be sexy. You don't have to be beautiful and messy.
You do not have to walk a certain way to be sexy. You don't have to walk a certain way to be a leading lady. You can toss all of that out. And just like the Impressionists looked at the Renaissance painters and said, You know what? Maybe we'll do choppy strokes.
Let's see how that works. Yeah. Then That's how you get a new idea. And that's how you are sort of born again, right? Mm-hmm.
Like you've said, what is beauty anyway? And you can take off your wig and you can take off your eyelashes and still be sexy.
Well, because sexy is just another part of your humanness. There are women out there who are size twenty six. There are women out there that have no hair. There are women out there who are eighty. And somehow, they are finding a way to be sexy.
That is the task of an actor. the task of the business. is to put it in a box to make it look I don't know, commercial. um for people to um buy it. to get better ratings.
And after a while, You sort of accept that as truth. That's not truth. You have 8 billion people in the world. And Lord knows how many billions of people right now are falling in love. and they're not all falling in love with someone who looks a certain way.
And however they're falling in love and whatever is sparking that person to fall in love with them is something that we cannot explain. Only that person can explain. Come on, isn't that just Interesting. That's beautiful.
Okay. That is beautiful. Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about August Wilson because I'm thinking about writing these great characters, and he's written some of the most wonderful characters that you've played. And if you could just talk a little bit about what.
Reading something like that, August Wilson's work, and feeling like. These words, I get this, because I think it relates to what you wrote in Judge Stone. Was it particularly sweet to win? The Oscar for fences because it was an August Wilson work. Absolutely.
I thought it was everything was perfect about it. Denzel directing it. Um me playing Rose. Um I I think a perfectly written woman. in the canon of American theater.
History and now film history. We're filming it in Pittsburgh, which is the Hill District, which is August Wilson's hometown. Um And the fact that he wrote about the African American experience. But he did not write characters that were a metaphor. For the African American experience.
He wrote stories that took place in a decade that African Americans lived. They were not metaphors. They weren't ideas. They weren't devices. All of them were real.
Dimensional human beings That's the gift. There are so many times that I want to say, even when I come on a set, I want to knock on the door and say, you know what? I'm sort of funny. I knock on the door and say, you know, I'm sort of childlike. I'm all of those things.
But you see that in August Wilson. August Wilson was for us. And you know, it's just like what Toni Morrison said when she wrote Shula and she got a great review in the New York Times. But the one caveat in the review was she would be great if she wrote white characters. And her response to that is, My greatness and even my skills as a writer should not be predicated on the fact that I write white characters.
I feel the same way about August Wilson. I put him on the same level as Arthur Miller. he wrote black characters. But I feel like they're still familiar. The characters who had dreams and hopes.
The characters who made big mistakes. and their characters who are beautifully ordinary. You know. Um It changed my life because I saw myself in that. I didn't have to sort of Shift and change myself in order to Fit into the narrative of, I don't know, George Bernard Shaw.
Who I love, by the way. I love George Bernard Shaw. Just FYI, everybody. And is that, do you keep in mind when writing this that maybe people will see themselves in these characters, just as you did in August Wilson's characters? Absolutely.
There is no space between human beings. I'm sorry, there isn't. I guarantee you right now, me and you could who could not be any more different could sit down and we absolutely, absolutely can find connection with anything. Being married, having children, having teenagers, being a woman, being a person living in the world. I guarantee you.
We create the separation. The separation is created by the world. They sort of take people out, you know, and put them in the categories. You know, when you're studying acting, they call it the divine rights of kings.
Some people are higher, some people are lower, some people. And when you get rid of all of that sludge, You see that there is no separation with us, and maybe Maybe. That's the fear. people are scared of. I don't know.
I think that's for the person to decide. You go to the theatre and the lights turn off. and all of a sudden a character is revealed to you Who could be the bad guy? Could be the person that makes the most horrific decision in their life. But yet in that decision you see yourself.
What does it do to you? I don't know. You see a black character on stage and they're talking, you know, like Elmore and King Headley, or, you know. or Louise and seven guitars, or whatever, and all of a sudden, oh my God, This is someone black. in nineteen forty eight Pittsburgh.
And yet I'm white. in 2026 and I see myself in them. What do you do with that? I always say that we have to find our way back to each other. We do.
I feel like it's definitely my role as an artist. It's definitely, I think my career has been the cosmic carrot to a higher sort of calling. And um find our way back to each other. I know I felt when I was a kid that I was left at the side of the road, I wanted people to see me as I saw them. And so with each.
role and maybe with this book. Do you feel like you're playing a part in helping people? find their way back to each other. Yeah, absolutely. And especially when you have the sort of subject of abortion, which there's so much sort of discourse on that, and there's So much ideology and ethos behind whether it's right or wrong.
And so you throw that in the mix. and you let people battle it out. And you see how they come together or not. But I think that it's a great spark for For a fire. A flame.
A conversation. But I feel that It's just like in therapy. If you go to the therapist and you just talk about what you ate that morning, you're not going to get at anything deeper, right? You gotta ask the questions. But with that, it requires a certain level of bravery.
Did you at all think maybe we shouldn't talk about abortion. I never feel that. I always want to talk about things that are uncomfortable. You know what? There you go.
Uncomfortable. It's the first thing you learn in acting. The beauty of discomfort. The beauty of being private and public. You know, I have a friend who's an acting teacher, and she said, every time.
I do the exercise where actors have to do something very private in class, in public, in front of the class. Everybody takes off their clothes as if being naked is the most vulnerable thing that you can do. And she said she remembered the actor who came into class, who sat in the middle of the room. and wrote a letter to her father. That's what it is It's the key to healing It's the gateway to connection.
It's just comfort. You know, it's like someone told me, Viola, would you have found your husband if there was no awkwardness? You know, that's how we make the greatest discoveries in life. Is when something costs us a little something. It's a little bit uncomfortable.
Yeah. How do you think Julius changed you. Speaking of your husband. How did Julius change? Or change how you looked at yourself, maybe, is the way to put it.
First of all, he loved me. Love changes you. He loved me. He really does.
Okay. And I feel that You have to in some way transform in order to take care of the greater good. and the greater good is the marriage. It is. There's something about that that made me step up.
You know, that saying, I take care of me for you, and you take care of you for me. Um Cause you can't go it alone right That's how he changed me. and he also makes me laugh. It's important. You know what is really important?
You know, we've been together 27 years. It's like, you know, best thing that ever happened to me. That's wonderful. We'll have more from our Sunday morning extended interview after this break. Um James was saying that you rewrote a lot of Nova's dialogue.
And I was thinking, well, of course she did. She has a teenage daughter. Was that part of it? Could you hear Genesis' voice? Oh, totally.
I heard Genesis' voice. And you know what I heard also in Nova? I felt a responsibility to women who have. been sexually assaulted and raped. Especially children.
as I am one of them. Um That I felt a responsibility. for their truth. They deserve that. And what they also deserve is the truth of how it made them feel.
I didn't want to filter that. And I think the part of it that was really, really, really important for me with Nova. Is the trauma of feeling nothing? That trauma of, you know, being catapulted into Everything that made you feel alive is gone. I wanted that for her.
With all the other things, you know, you want to sell the book, right? I feel the book is a page turner. It's a page turn. The courtroom drama, what happens to this small town when they get all this press and this, you know, with this hot-button issues and all of that, but within it, are people who are affected. And that's a part of the drama too.
So who are they? and with Nova. As a child, I wanted people to understand. how that was ripped away. from her.
Because I don't think that if you saw Nova on the surface, you would even think that. Mm. It was very important for me to get that voice in there, as well as all the other things that she loved to plant flowers because she wants to see things grow. She wants to feel like she's a part of giving something life, right?
So, um. But that was really important to me 'cause thirteen year olds sometimes They all know how they feel yet. And then all of a sudden this trauma happens to them and oh I want to honor her. Yeah. You also talk about racism in the South.
Yes. Head on. And I actually went and Googled Alabama Klan and was shocked by the number of groups that are still there. I mean, you're talking about 2026. Why was it important for you to include that as part of the story?
Because it's a part of the truth.
Okay, You know, whenever you write any narrative, Um Or even when you create a character, one of the things they teach you, even in acting, is What's the obstacle? What are you fighting against? That's what makes it spicy and that's what makes it dramatic. And I think that if those elements weren't there, That there is a certain part of the characters that you would not have been able to see If a character is by themselves, they're one thing. When another character enters a story they become something else.
And then when something that is happening in the culture is then injected into the story, then it brings out something entirely different inside them. entirely different sort of part. of their humanness. That's as much as I could say because racism is a five-hour, five-day, five-month, five-year discussion. Um I certainly grew up with it.
Yeah. And that it's still in 2026, that we're still talking about it. And I think that's a part of the story. I think it's a part of Nova's story. She's a 13-year-old African American girl who was raped.
and an African-American girl who looks grown and developed. She's probably adultified. She's seen as not beautiful. She's seen as probably, I don't know, hostile. She's seen as someone who's highly sexual, even though she's none of those things.
But that's a part of the story of how she is perceived. See And that is injected into the story and to um And even to how the case unfolds, even with Mary Stone being someone of a higher stature. Smart. A judge. But African American.
How is she seen? If you took out the racism and you just sort of left her alone, I don't think that it would be. an honest portrayal of a character. And going back to that, this is going to be an honest portrayal, all the complexities, not so. simply drawing.
I like the straight no chaser sort of approach to storytelling. I think that it always, I feel like it's always progressive. I always use the example of Jane Fonda in Clute. She wasn't just a prostitute. She was a woman who was sexually abused and became a prostitute.
And that just sort of changed everything in that movie. And I believe that's what got her the Academy Award. Mm-hmm. Um you talked about how you have a sense of humor. What's the role that you had the most fun in?
I have fun in all my characters. I did, I did, I did. Have you had a chance to explore that sense of humor in a particular role? Um Not a lot but troop zero for sure Um I did a really, I wouldn't say it's a great movie, even though everyone in it was great. Courtney Cox was in it.
David R. Cat, it was called The Shrink is In. I enjoyed that. Um And I certainly have done a lot of plays, Red Noses, and Christmas Carol, all of those things. I always feel that.
You know I feel like I'm funny in my life. Like, I think that's a surprise most people have when they come into my house that I'm funny in my life. But what I find in a lot of The material I get, even if there is humor in it, is it's not humor that comes from life. It's like gimmicky. And you know, when you're setting it up and all that, it y you know, that's why they say a lot of comedians are really great with that, because they're good with the setup.
you know but I'm looking for that. I'm looking for characters that are just It's just through that life that you find the humor. I think I I could do that. Maybe you can write that character. I don't know.
I'm getting to the point in my life, it's like I think that people will say, go write a character and then just, you know, sell it to someone. And then once you sell it to someone, you know, get some other great actors attached to it. I don't think people understand how long that takes. And I I don't know, maybe I think I wanna do something else. I don't There's other things in life that I would love to do.
So going back to this writing of novels, is this The start of another career for you? Perhaps I don't know. I I don't. I don't know what this chapter in my life is about. You know, my husband and I started a foundation, the Davis Tennant Foundation.
It's based in Central Falls. Oh boy, that Gives me That fills me up so much. Seeing that community and all the people just the beauty of that community and the self-possession of that community and sort of nurturing that and watching it grow and Um That Actually gives me a lot of fulfillment.
So the foundation, continue acting, and then maybe a little more writing, who knows? Maybe a little bit more writing. Or maybe travel. You know maybe just being a regular person I think I've earned that. You know?
I don't know if it's a to-do list. of the to-do lists is just to be list. I just wanna be See what life you know, has in store for me. I don't Egot is not going to be on my gravestone. Just put it that way.
No? No. I don't think there's enough space. But beloved, there's enough space for beloved. You know.
Yeah. You talk about how you have imposter syndrome. Yeah. That you and Meryl Streep bonded over that back during the doubt days, that you carry this imposter syndrome with you and almost that it's a good thing. Did you have imposter syndrome going into writing a novel?
There's always imposter syndrome. If, if, you know what? As a matter of fact, and I hope I don't get heat for this, but if I do, I do. I think imposter syndrome is in every artist that is out there, probably in every human being. It's just, it just is.
You can fight it if you want to, you can wrestle with it if you want to. But it's there. I'm not mad at it. I'm not saying I don't have confidence in myself. That I don't love myself.
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying what's in an artist is always the need to be better. You do King Lear at 25 and now you're 80. You look at the performance at 25 and you're like, I miss that. Picasso probably did it.
Van Gogh, I'm sure, you know, you see Starry Night. You know, you see, you know, cubism and you think, oh my goodness, a work of art. What they see is a stroke that was missing. And you are the same way?
Well, I'm not comparing myself to Picasso and Ban Gogh, but yes, you see what's missing. Absolutely. Listen, I played. Um Rose in fences before I became a mom. And then I played her again.
In the movie, I never got the last scene right on stage. I could never get it. But in the movie Pow. I got it. That's the imposter syndrome.
It's not walking in and saying, I'm not worthy, I'm a piece of crap, I'm not that. That's how people view it. But as an artist It's literally a part of the creative process. chiseling away at it. You're always in rehearsal.
you're never in performance. That's why I was asking about how did you know the book was finished because yeah. For you, is it just I want to tweak, I want to tweak, I want to tweak, I want to tweak? Oh, yeah, I was trying not to drive James crazy. It's like James, James, when do we turn the book in?
James, can you give me like five more hours? James, James, can you give me two more days? And then I finally said, Viol, let it go, let it go, let it go. That's why it's good we have deadlines. Yes, absolutely, yeah.
I'm Jane Pauley. Thank you for listening. And for more of our extended interviews, follow and listen to Sunday Morning on the free Odyssey app. or wherever you get your podcasts. A lot of short daily news podcasts focus on just one story, but right now, you probably need more.
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