“How to Get Away with Murder” star, Emmy winner and two-time Oscar nominee Viola Davis has had one career-defining year. She graces the January 2016 cover of InStyle and she looks magnificent. Her interview with the magazine focused on her growth, and what she’s realized about herself as she’s evolved over time.
Davis never ceases to amaze me, both on and off set. She is truly an example of a woman who is still REAL even beyond her fame. She admits in the interview that she actually has to work really hard to look good, and that honestly if it wasn’t for paid stylists she probably wouldn’t be able to put the looks together that she hits the red carpet with. “Taking care of a 5-year-old, cooking at home, and running to the set when you’ve had four hours of sleep, you don’t feel like a movie star…then, every once in a while, you put something on that makes you feel cute,” she said.
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Of her pre-stylist days she says, “Back in the day, my style was whatever was different and cheap. I was an artist, and I wanted my clothes to reflect that. I now understand fashion in a way that I don’t even have a language for. I know designers. Before, you could’ve put a gun to my head and asked me to name just one designer and I would’ve been dead.”
At the Emmy Awards this year, Davis gave a profound acceptance speech where she touched on the topic of opportunity and lack of diversity within Hollywood. “The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You can’t win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there….So here’s to all the writers, the awesome people — Ben Sherwood, Paul Lee, Peter Nowalk, Shonda Rhimes — people who have redefined what it means to be beautiful, to be sexy, to be a leading women, to be black. And to the Taraji P. Hensons, the Kerry Washingtons, the Halle Berrys, the Nicole Beharies, the Meagan Goods, to Gabrielle Union, thank you for taking us over that line.”
Viola Davis: Fearless About Aging was originally published on blackdoctor.org
