Latest / The Breakfast Club / Viola Davis Talks New Memoir "Finding Me", Relationship With Parents, Michelle Obama & More

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Viola Davis Talks New Memoir "Finding Me", Relationship With Parents, Michelle Obama & More · The Breakfast Club

0:00
Speaker 1: Wait that answer. In the morning Breakfast Club Morning, everybody
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Speaker 1: is DJ Envy, Angela Ye, Charlemagne the guy. We all
0:09
Speaker 1: the Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building,
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Speaker 1: a queen icon Living. That's right, Viola Davis, Well you
0:17
Speaker 1: so much. Good morning. How are you today? You know what,
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Speaker 1: I'm pretty good. I'm well rested, I feel alive. There
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Speaker 1: you go, okay, okay, Well, thank you for taking time
0:27
Speaker 1: to come and sit with us. It's just so exciting
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Speaker 1: the show on the schedule of Viola Davis finding me.
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Speaker 1: Yes man, man, this book is such a beautiful exploration
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Speaker 1: of your your inner child. Like when you started the
0:39
Speaker 1: journey of writing this book, did you know you would
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Speaker 1: go on that journey with your inner child as well? Yeah.
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Speaker 1: That was the whole point that I needed to find
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Speaker 1: that inner child. And my inner child was one that
0:51
Speaker 1: needed both healing and needed to be celebrated. She was
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Speaker 1: a survivor as well as someone who you know, held
0:59
Speaker 1: a lot of trauma. But I felt like I had
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Speaker 1: to explore it because we were at that period of time.
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Speaker 1: I wrote it during the pandemic, you know, the George
1:07
Speaker 1: Floyd of it all, the almand Aubrey Brianna Taylor of
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Speaker 1: it all, everything dealing with the COVID, with the election,
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Speaker 1: I felt like I was having a crisis of meaning
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Speaker 1: and it was my way of pressing the reset button,
1:23
Speaker 1: just to understand, man, viola, what are you supposed to
1:27
Speaker 1: do from here on out? It just was a big
1:29
Speaker 1: wake up call personally and you know, culturally. So that's
1:35
Speaker 1: why I wrote the book. I had to go back
1:37
Speaker 1: to the beginning of me. When you start during the pandemic,
1:39
Speaker 1: or this was something you were doing beforehand, and you
1:41
Speaker 1: were just so many projects. He was like, I'll get
1:43
Speaker 1: to it. This was pandemic, this is what I want
1:46
Speaker 1: to do. Well. I didn't want to do nothing during
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Speaker 1: the pandemic, but I did start during the pandemic. I
1:54
Speaker 1: had just finished How to Get Away with Murder. I
1:56
Speaker 1: literally just ended it that March, and I started writing
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Speaker 1: the book. It was something to do because otherwise I
2:04
Speaker 1: was going stir crazy. I wasn't the person who settled
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Speaker 1: into the pandemic. I felt everything that was going on
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Speaker 1: around me, and I felt the chaos of it, and
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Speaker 1: I internalized it. So this book was great therapy. So
2:20
Speaker 1: when God made you sit still in you know, during
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Speaker 1: the pandemic. What did you see about yourself that you
2:25
Speaker 1: hadn't saw in a while. I saw a lot of things.
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Speaker 1: I saw Viola as a survivor. I saw, um, you know,
2:35
Speaker 1: I keep telling this story ad nauseum. I know I've
2:39
Speaker 1: told it a lot, but I've always said you got
2:43
Speaker 1: to leave a legacy, right, So I said, you know,
2:46
Speaker 1: it's life is like a relay race. It's what you
2:49
Speaker 1: do with your dash of time. And what great runner
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Speaker 1: you pass that baton, you know, off to You pass
2:55
Speaker 1: it on to the next generation. They pass it on
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Speaker 1: to the person you know who's to them and after them.
3:01
Speaker 1: And I realized during the writing of the book, is
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Speaker 1: those great runners are you at a different age? The
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Speaker 1: six year old who survives it then, you know, may
3:12
Speaker 1: survive it really messy may have been inappropriate, but she
3:16
Speaker 1: ran her leg of the race and passed the baton
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Speaker 1: onto the fourteen year old Viola, who said, I want
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Speaker 1: to be an actor. In the midst of all the poverty,
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Speaker 1: the abuse, the bed wedding, the sexual all of that,
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Speaker 1: she wanted to be an actor. She saw a way
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Speaker 1: out and fourteen year old pass it on to the
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Speaker 1: twenty eight year old who said, you know what. I
3:36
Speaker 1: need therapy because I want healthy relationships in my life.
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Speaker 1: I want to be happier, and I don't know how
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Speaker 1: to do that. And she passed it on to the
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Speaker 1: thirty four year old Viola who got married to the
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Speaker 1: fort forty five year old Viola who then became a mom.
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Speaker 1: And then now I'm fifty six and I have the
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Speaker 1: baton in my hand, and now what you know, what
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Speaker 1: am I supposed to do with this part of my life?
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Speaker 1: Because I would say, at fifty six, you're a little
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Speaker 1: bit past midlife. So that's what I learned. It's like
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Speaker 1: it's a constant reassessment of where do you want to be,
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Speaker 1: what do your life? What do you want your life
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Speaker 1: to sort of look like? And I keep coming back
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Speaker 1: to this because I know I know that, I know that,
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Speaker 1: I know that the number one regret of the dying
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Speaker 1: is they didn't take risks, they didn't become their ideal self.
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Speaker 1: I don't want anyone to think that I wasn't brave.
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Speaker 1: And I think that sometimes people hold off braveness and
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Speaker 1: courage because they don't want to risk failure and they
4:46
Speaker 1: don't want to risk shame. And I think you got
4:49
Speaker 1: to risk it, and that's been my biggest discovery in
4:53
Speaker 1: writing the book. You're say in the book that memories
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Speaker 1: are powerful, right, some people like to forget memories because
5:00
Speaker 1: so painful and so hurtful. But it seems like you
5:03
Speaker 1: use it as inspiration to push yourself hard. Why is that.
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Speaker 1: I think the pain the trauma is equal to the
5:14
Speaker 1: joy and the peace in your life. I think that
5:17
Speaker 1: they're one and the same. I don't think that the
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Speaker 1: pain and the trauma and the hard times are a
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Speaker 1: detour from life. I think it's a part of life.
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Speaker 1: And I think that when you refuse to lean in
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Speaker 1: to all of it is you refuse to become connected
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Speaker 1: to yourself. And that's why no one can connect with
5:38
Speaker 1: anyone else because the only time we want to meet
5:41
Speaker 1: is with great stories of overcoming and winning. And then
5:45
Speaker 1: when someone feels like they are not overcoming and they're
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Speaker 1: not winning and they're not waking up happy every day,
5:50
Speaker 1: then they feel like they need to hide in the closet,
5:52
Speaker 1: not come out, not open their mouths, not saying anything.
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Speaker 1: There's no one to share with, there's no sacred space
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Speaker 1: to be you. I count it all joy. Now when
6:03
Speaker 1: I say I count it all joy. It takes some
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Speaker 1: time sometimes to count it all joy, but I do
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Speaker 1: believe that it's all a part of life. I've been
6:14
Speaker 1: in too many spaces where I haven't been able to
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Speaker 1: connect with people. You just never know what people have
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Speaker 1: gone through to get to where they are today, which
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Speaker 1: is why memoir like this, where you were so open
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Speaker 1: and honest about everything, it really helped us to see
6:28
Speaker 1: like where you come from when you're acting. And I
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Speaker 1: wanted to ask you about your relationship with your parents
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Speaker 1: because in this book you talk a lot about things
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Speaker 1: that happened to you when you were a child. What
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Speaker 1: did you realize while writing this book about like your
6:41
Speaker 1: father and about your mother. I realized they did the
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Speaker 1: best they could with what they had. That's what I realized.
6:51
Speaker 1: Because it's so hard to forgive your dad. I know,
6:54
Speaker 1: you know you talk about how abusive he was to
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Speaker 1: your mother and things that you had to witness. So
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Speaker 1: is it hard for you to even forgive that? Yeah,
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Speaker 1: it is. Forgiveness is to me. I feel like forgiveness
7:09
Speaker 1: and faith are equal in terms of they're the hardest
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Speaker 1: things to achieve. It's they're so abstract, so it comes
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Speaker 1: down to choice. I forgive for myself. I forgive because
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Speaker 1: I don't want to carry that weight, the weight, the
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Speaker 1: vengefulness of regret and all of that. For me, it
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Speaker 1: blocks everything from coming into your life. And I don't
7:36
Speaker 1: think that anyone wants to see a sixty year old
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Speaker 1: or here is sixty year old sitting in their therapists saying, I,
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Speaker 1: you know, haven't been able to make my marriage work
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Speaker 1: or this work in my life because what my dad
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Speaker 1: did when I was five. At some point your life
7:53
Speaker 1: becomes yours as well. That you said that, because my
7:57
Speaker 1: wife was up here the other day and she was like,
7:59
Speaker 1: you know, and she forgave. She gave for herself. And
8:01
Speaker 1: I didn't understand it at first because most people think
8:04
Speaker 1: when you forgive, you're forgiving the person that hurts you,
8:07
Speaker 1: but it's actually to not to take away that pain
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Speaker 1: from yourself so you don't have to deal with it anymore.
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Speaker 1: That is that what you're saying when you say I
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Speaker 1: forgive for myself. Well, yeah, that's part of it. I
8:19
Speaker 1: do believe it's a sort of prison. And not to
8:24
Speaker 1: get too philosophical, of course, but I believe that when
8:29
Speaker 1: you get to the end of your life, you're not
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Speaker 1: thinking about all the people that you hated and all
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Speaker 1: the people that did you wrong. I don't think that
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Speaker 1: you're thinking about that when you're taking your last breath.
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Speaker 1: I just don't. I think all of that goes away,
8:42
Speaker 1: and I think everything comes into sharp focus, which is
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Speaker 1: probably making amends, probably being with the people that you love,
8:51
Speaker 1: probably sewing everything up, probably holding someone's hands. But I
8:56
Speaker 1: don't think that we're thinking about all of that. I
8:58
Speaker 1: think that once again, the only person you could say
9:03
Speaker 1: is yourself. That's the only thing that you could do.
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Speaker 1: You can't keep backtracking as what wrong someone did to
9:10
Speaker 1: you or whatever. You got to figure out how to
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Speaker 1: heal that so that you know. It's what I think.
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Speaker 1: I you know what I posted and on my page,
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Speaker 1: it's like, you don't. You haven't met all the people
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Speaker 1: who are going to love you in your life yet.
9:29
Speaker 1: And so when you meet all these people who are
9:31
Speaker 1: going to love you, they do not want to meet
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Speaker 1: a vengeful person, okay, because they're gonna get the overflow
9:38
Speaker 1: of that vengefulness. As a matter of fact, they're not
9:43
Speaker 1: going to get the overflow of that vengefulness. They're gonna
9:45
Speaker 1: get nothing. They're gonna go so far with you and
9:49
Speaker 1: then it's gonna stop. I've been with those people they
9:53
Speaker 1: called emotionally unavailable. I love how you, you know, hold
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Speaker 1: your father accountable, also humanize him. Did you always see
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Speaker 1: the humanity in him or was that something that happened
10:03
Speaker 1: as you got oh do it, you know with the
10:06
Speaker 1: more work you did on yourself. Absolutely, more work I
10:09
Speaker 1: did it on myself. The more I saw his humanity,
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Speaker 1: the more I could connect the dots I thought. You know,
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Speaker 1: I thought life was like a Disney movie. People were
10:18
Speaker 1: just good or bad. That's it. The evil villain who
10:22
Speaker 1: just comes out just wants to destroy everyone. I didn't
10:26
Speaker 1: know that people acted because of specific memories once again,
10:31
Speaker 1: trauma in their lives, the people, and we really demonize
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Speaker 1: black people, you know, and the very way you wouldn't
10:39
Speaker 1: even be doing what you're doing if all those things
10:42
Speaker 1: hadn't happened to you as a child. Absolutely, because it
10:45
Speaker 1: was such an escape for you to be able to
10:46
Speaker 1: turn on the TV. You said it was Cicily Tyson
10:49
Speaker 1: right that you saw that made you even say this
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Speaker 1: is what I want to do. Absolutely, that that woman
10:56
Speaker 1: and that performance was everything. I remember the moment I
11:01
Speaker 1: saw that performance because it was like magic. It was
11:05
Speaker 1: like it was a magician pulling a rabbit out of
11:08
Speaker 1: the hat. If you've ever seen the performance, she aged
11:11
Speaker 1: from eighteen to one hundred and ten, and you could
11:14
Speaker 1: not even believe it from the first frame of that
11:18
Speaker 1: it was a mini series. And literally the wind stopped blowing,
11:24
Speaker 1: the sun came out, and I saw a portal way
11:29
Speaker 1: out of the poverty, the trauma. I just felt like,
11:35
Speaker 1: if I could do that, I could make a life.
11:39
Speaker 1: I think sometimes you gotta see it, you know, And
11:42
Speaker 1: I know everybody just puts faith on people, especially on us,
11:46
Speaker 1: especially on black folk. I know that's all we had.
11:50
Speaker 1: And and but it's a lot. You know. You go
11:53
Speaker 1: up to young black kids who were coming from really
11:55
Speaker 1: challenging backgrounds, and people come up to them and say,
11:58
Speaker 1: you know, you could be what who and what you
12:01
Speaker 1: want to be. You just have to dream big. And
12:03
Speaker 1: then once you make it, you come back, you bring
12:06
Speaker 1: your family up, you bring your community up. And I'm
12:08
Speaker 1: sure if that kid had a language, he would say,
12:12
Speaker 1: how that's a lot you just throw and then you
12:17
Speaker 1: gotta work ten times as hard. You throw all of
12:20
Speaker 1: that on their lap. And then at fifteen, if they
12:23
Speaker 1: can't even get if they can't achieve it at all,
12:26
Speaker 1: or they feel like they want to give up, and
12:28
Speaker 1: then we just brate them. It's a lot that we
12:31
Speaker 1: put on them. So sometimes you gotta see it, you
12:34
Speaker 1: gotta hold it, you gotta somebody's gotta throw you a rope.
12:38
Speaker 1: They do. I honestly, what was you talk about, sicily
12:41
Speaker 1: or what was some of your positive influences? Because you know,
12:44
Speaker 1: you talk about, you know, your parents and how you
12:46
Speaker 1: looked at your dad, and you talked about, you know,
12:48
Speaker 1: going to the white school and the white kids chasing
12:50
Speaker 1: you all the bricks, and you talk about all those things.
12:52
Speaker 1: So what positive influence did you have? What was your
12:55
Speaker 1: safe haven as a kid if there wasn't there, There
13:01
Speaker 1: was no one safe haven for me. What life becomes
13:06
Speaker 1: about is how someone could take you from A to
13:10
Speaker 1: A plus, from A plus t D, from D to
13:15
Speaker 1: you know, to M to M. You know, there are
13:19
Speaker 1: people who can carry you at different points in your life.
13:23
Speaker 1: It could be a teacher, It could be a parent,
13:26
Speaker 1: it could be a relative, it could be a stranger
13:29
Speaker 1: that gives you one word. I had a lot of teachers,
13:33
Speaker 1: even the first teacher who looked at me and he
13:37
Speaker 1: was an acting coach, who looked at me and told
13:39
Speaker 1: me I was beautiful. That meant a lot to me.
13:45
Speaker 1: It did. And the first person who just came into
13:50
Speaker 1: science class because he was a teacher and I called
13:53
Speaker 1: him in the middle of the day. He was an
13:54
Speaker 1: upward bound teacher and I said, I was having a
13:57
Speaker 1: panic attack. He came to the school. He interrupt the
14:00
Speaker 1: science class. He said, I want to see Viola. The
14:02
Speaker 1: science teacher said, you can't do that. He said, excuse me, sir,
14:05
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it. Anybody, anybody who throws you a
14:10
Speaker 1: rope and sees you and likes you. There is something
14:15
Speaker 1: about someone looking at you and liking you, right, and
14:18
Speaker 1: even saying your potential when you can't see it. Absolutely,
14:20
Speaker 1: because sometimes you tuck yourself out of things right because
14:23
Speaker 1: of fear. But then someone tells you, like your science teacher, listen,
14:27
Speaker 1: you need to apply for this, you can do it,
14:29
Speaker 1: and you tell yourself, I can't do it. Why would
14:31
Speaker 1: they take me? Why would they accept me? But somebody
14:33
Speaker 1: else believing in you and giving you the tools, like
14:36
Speaker 1: you can't make excuses anymore after a while, absolutely, and
14:39
Speaker 1: when you have there are no words to describe. And
14:43
Speaker 1: you know what, very seldom am I in a space
14:46
Speaker 1: And I know y'all can say the same thing, but
14:50
Speaker 1: am I in a space specially as a dark skinned
14:52
Speaker 1: black woman, and could speak my truth about what that
14:56
Speaker 1: means the isolation of that experience varience okay, because it
15:02
Speaker 1: comes at you threefold. It comes at you through yes,
15:09
Speaker 1: white America. It comes to you through the experience and
15:14
Speaker 1: the culture of America, and it comes to you through
15:19
Speaker 1: even black culture. M I'm just gonna say it, because
15:24
Speaker 1: it's called colorism. It's its own different sect of racism,
15:28
Speaker 1: and it is destructive because what you tell women in
15:33
Speaker 1: general is that beauty is a value, which it's not. Listen,
15:40
Speaker 1: I'm one of those people. I think everybody is beautiful,
15:43
Speaker 1: and I really do. I don't talk about stuff like that.
15:48
Speaker 1: Oh yes, well the bull frogs. At a different level,
15:53
Speaker 1: there was some mean women. But but you consider it
16:01
Speaker 1: a value. And with someone who you feel has value,
16:06
Speaker 1: you pay attention to them, you pour into them. You
16:09
Speaker 1: think that they're smarter, more valuable, more everything. So when
16:13
Speaker 1: you go up to little chocolate girls who are darker
16:16
Speaker 1: than a paper bag and you're constantly telling them they're
16:19
Speaker 1: not as cute, they have bad hair, they have this
16:24
Speaker 1: that you're putting negative connotations, and then you can now
16:29
Speaker 1: you can literally google people who seem to have had
16:35
Speaker 1: press conferences to talk about how unattractive they find darker
16:40
Speaker 1: skinned women. I mean, here's the thing. Even if you
16:43
Speaker 1: feel that way, why are you going to spread that?
16:48
Speaker 1: How do you think people could have received that? And
16:52
Speaker 1: we know how difficult it is to get a leg up,
16:55
Speaker 1: you know in the black community, the lack of opportunity
16:58
Speaker 1: what we're running from, and then you're gonna put that
17:02
Speaker 1: on us and so and when you can't speak your
17:06
Speaker 1: truth in the room, then you feel like you have
17:09
Speaker 1: to hide yourself. It's very it's like physically painful. I
17:15
Speaker 1: want I want to ask you a couple more questions
17:16
Speaker 1: about your father because I found that dynamic so interested.
17:18
Speaker 1: And you said something in the the book and on paraphrasing,
17:20
Speaker 1: but you said your father was an abuser who became
17:23
Speaker 1: a good partner. Yeah, and this era canceled coaches. Some
17:26
Speaker 1: people couldn't even imagine that happening. Can you explain he did?
17:32
Speaker 1: And I think he always had it in him. I
17:35
Speaker 1: think he was wrestling, you know. I always feel like
17:38
Speaker 1: it got two people that you wrestle with right, and
17:41
Speaker 1: it's who you feed, and I think he fed the
17:46
Speaker 1: more violent aspects of himself. I think he was running
17:49
Speaker 1: from a lot. But in the last several decades, I
17:53
Speaker 1: think since I was probably in my twenties, he helped
17:58
Speaker 1: my mom raise a lot of my relatives children, and
18:05
Speaker 1: he loved my mother. He was always there rubbing her feet,
18:12
Speaker 1: and towards the end of his life, I mean, I
18:14
Speaker 1: say towards the end, the last couple of days of
18:16
Speaker 1: his life, my mom would always say, every single day
18:20
Speaker 1: he woke up, even when he was suffering from dementia,
18:23
Speaker 1: towards the end, he would say, you know, may Alice,
18:26
Speaker 1: you know I'm sorry about what I did to you. Wow,
18:30
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I feel like that's everything. I mean, how
18:37
Speaker 1: many people do you know that even make amends, that
18:42
Speaker 1: even opened their mouths, And I think that that, I
18:47
Speaker 1: feel like that has to be acknowledged as an incredible
18:50
Speaker 1: character trait. You also said in the book your father
18:54
Speaker 1: passed and you never got the opportunity to find out
18:56
Speaker 1: what caused his trauma. Are you still able to heal
18:59
Speaker 1: that part of your life without knowing that peace? Oh? Yeah,
19:02
Speaker 1: absolutely absolutely. I once again I think the only race
19:07
Speaker 1: you can run is your own. You know. I didn't
19:11
Speaker 1: know that because he didn't make it known, and so
19:17
Speaker 1: I think that that is more his burden and not mine.
19:22
Speaker 1: I made the choice to forgive despite not knowing, And
19:25
Speaker 1: I think that's what love looks like. It's like Belle
19:29
Speaker 1: hook says, you know that we're always wrestling with not
19:34
Speaker 1: feeling lovelessness. You know, if you're in any relationship, you
19:38
Speaker 1: know you're going to have some hard conversations. How did
19:42
Speaker 1: that affect you with other relationships? With you dating and
19:45
Speaker 1: viewing men, did you look at men as something you
19:48
Speaker 1: didn't want to necessarily date, You didn't trust because you've
19:50
Speaker 1: seen how your dad. Yes, but I you know, yes, absolutely, yeah,
19:58
Speaker 1: And I think it's a never ending narrative out there.
20:01
Speaker 1: You don't trust men. You know they cheaters, the liars.
20:07
Speaker 1: You know, this is all all they want from women. Absolutely,
20:11
Speaker 1: It's a constant sort of stream of consciousness in the
20:15
Speaker 1: minds of women. And then when when women get together,
20:19
Speaker 1: we share our our jerk stories. You know, he did
20:23
Speaker 1: this to me, girl, Yeah, well he did this to
20:25
Speaker 1: me and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. No
20:28
Speaker 1: one could find a good man. That's what the narrative
20:32
Speaker 1: out there is that no one And I remember when
20:35
Speaker 1: I met my husband Julius, who I prayed for, and
20:38
Speaker 1: I prayed for him specifically. I remember when I met him.
20:43
Speaker 1: I went to my therapist. I said, I don't know,
20:45
Speaker 1: I don't know about him, and my therapist said, oh, why,
20:49
Speaker 1: he seems really really nice. I said, I know, he
20:52
Speaker 1: does seem really really nice. Something is wrong, though, what
20:55
Speaker 1: do you think it is? I don't know, but it's something.
20:58
Speaker 1: And then I remember her saying, Viola, there will be
21:02
Speaker 1: something wrong because he's human. He's not perfect, so if
21:08
Speaker 1: you're looking, you're gonna find it. But that doesn't mean
21:12
Speaker 1: he's not the person you should be with. And that
21:16
Speaker 1: once again a portal, right that you're meeting you you're
21:22
Speaker 1: imperfect self, who wants to be forgiven, who wants to
21:26
Speaker 1: be understood. Is you're meeting another imperfect person that wants
21:30
Speaker 1: to be understood, and at some point you have to
21:32
Speaker 1: make the decision to love or not love. Does that
21:34
Speaker 1: make you overprotective with your daughter now because you've seen
21:37
Speaker 1: so much and now your daughter's at an age where she's,
21:40
Speaker 1: you know, starting to be a teenager. And starting to
21:43
Speaker 1: like boys or whoever. And yes, yes, but I know
21:50
Speaker 1: how hard life is, so I know I'm throwing her
21:53
Speaker 1: into I feel that that's one of the things that
21:57
Speaker 1: happens when you have a kid that you want to
21:59
Speaker 1: protect them and then the next thought is you can't.
22:04
Speaker 1: That's tough, that is hard. That we both had four daughters,
22:08
Speaker 1: so we know, Yeah, that's that's what I'm talking about.
22:10
Speaker 1: The Yeah, because my daughters at the age now at thirteen,
22:13
Speaker 1: when she's telling me, I'm controlling, but I'm really in
22:16
Speaker 1: my mind, I'm just being protected. Yes, absolutely, I tell
22:19
Speaker 1: my daughter, no one is going to love you like
22:21
Speaker 1: Mama loves you, not even the love of your life.
22:23
Speaker 1: So as long as we get that out of the way,
22:27
Speaker 1: that's why I talked to you like this, right. Have
22:29
Speaker 1: you had some conversations with your mom before this book
22:33
Speaker 1: came out about Yes, because I know I saw you
22:37
Speaker 1: talking to Oprah about that. So even afterwards, like after
22:40
Speaker 1: she read it, what did she say? My mom has
22:43
Speaker 1: not read it yet, Um, but I talked to my
22:47
Speaker 1: mom all the time about it. Once again, there are
22:52
Speaker 1: qualities I love and my parents that probably are not
22:57
Speaker 1: the qualities that I elevated. And the quality that I
23:00
Speaker 1: love in my mom is she likes to tell the truth.
23:06
Speaker 1: And I know that that sounds like really simple, but
23:09
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of people like telling the truth.
23:11
Speaker 1: A lot of people are very comfortable with telling a great,
23:14
Speaker 1: beautiful lie. She's not afraid of that, of leaning in,
23:19
Speaker 1: and so I talked to her. I like my relationship
23:23
Speaker 1: with my mom now as an adult because I can
23:25
Speaker 1: ask her some pretty racy questions. Yeah, I want to
23:27
Speaker 1: ask you about a quote and it came from a
23:30
Speaker 1: sit down with your mom when you was telling her.
23:33
Speaker 1: I guess when you first about the first when you
23:35
Speaker 1: was experienced abuse. You told her for the first time
23:37
Speaker 1: about all these abuse she experience and you said, success
23:39
Speaker 1: pales in comparison the healing. Yeah. Could you expand on that? Yeah,
23:47
Speaker 1: that I think you know. The point in the book
23:52
Speaker 1: when I when I wrote that, and it took me
23:54
Speaker 1: a long time to write that part, is I mentioned that,
24:00
Speaker 1: you know, I'm living in this big house. I'm definitely
24:03
Speaker 1: living the American dream or whatever. And I think that
24:08
Speaker 1: people feel like, once you hit that, then that's it. Ever,
24:12
Speaker 1: your life is sown, You've made it, and it's not
24:16
Speaker 1: it I think that's man made meaning. The real meaning
24:24
Speaker 1: is healing. It really is, it's healing from the wounds.
24:29
Speaker 1: It's the journey to healing. And especially because you know,
24:32
Speaker 1: once I told her that, once again, I expected a
24:36
Speaker 1: response that I would see on Thursday night line up
24:39
Speaker 1: on ABC. And how can you expect that with something
24:44
Speaker 1: as complicated as sort of any kind of sexual assault
24:49
Speaker 1: that happens within families In this instance, my brother and
24:53
Speaker 1: I'm telling my mother this, and this person, this brother
25:00
Speaker 1: or came out of her body. Right, there's a simplicity
25:05
Speaker 1: in which we approach humanity, and I think that human
25:09
Speaker 1: beings are way more complicated than that. So, um, the
25:17
Speaker 1: path to healing is difficult, But for me, it's everything.
25:23
Speaker 1: It's not healing or healing has been the one thing
25:27
Speaker 1: that has gotten in the way of everything in my life,
25:31
Speaker 1: either gotten in the way of it or has released it.
25:34
Speaker 1: Ability Ability hasn't even released things in my life. Awards
25:40
Speaker 1: haven't released anything in my life. Healing and whatever has
25:43
Speaker 1: happened happening and internally in me has been everything has
25:48
Speaker 1: been the driving narrative of my entire fifty six years.
25:53
Speaker 1: Do you think you can ever get to a place
25:55
Speaker 1: of wholeness. I mean, I talk to my therapists about this.
25:58
Speaker 1: I'm not. I don't think you do. I think you
26:00
Speaker 1: because you have triggers, right, You'll think you're fine with
26:02
Speaker 1: something and the next thing you know, you're triggered by it.
26:05
Speaker 1: Later on, you think you ever get to a place loop.
26:07
Speaker 1: And I talk about that with memories, that memories are deathless.
26:13
Speaker 1: I don't know what that means. I feel like I'm
26:16
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm whole. I do, But I feel
26:20
Speaker 1: like life is an absolute journey, just like you don't
26:22
Speaker 1: know how many people are gonna love you. You don't
26:24
Speaker 1: know what's going to happen tomorrow, and you don't know
26:27
Speaker 1: how you're going to react to it, you know. And
26:30
Speaker 1: once again, Thursday night Lineup on ABC, I think everybody
26:34
Speaker 1: wants a TV response. I don't think that life is
26:38
Speaker 1: a destination. Life is about driving the car and sometimes
26:42
Speaker 1: the tank is completely full. Sometimes the tank is empty
26:46
Speaker 1: and you're standing by the car waiting, you know, for
26:49
Speaker 1: a triple A to come and get you some gas.
26:52
Speaker 1: Sometimes the tank is a quarter full. You're constantly you're
26:57
Speaker 1: constantly learning, you're constantly in process. But you hope for
27:05
Speaker 1: one of my favorite quotes is I don't know the
27:09
Speaker 1: definition of grace, only that it meets you where you
27:12
Speaker 1: are and doesn't leave you how it found you. Do
27:17
Speaker 1: you want some grace in your life? You know, because
27:21
Speaker 1: you're never going to arrive perfectly at any place. I
27:25
Speaker 1: heard you talk. You talk about life, and you talk
27:27
Speaker 1: about what defines our life right, and you mentioned TVs,
27:32
Speaker 1: mentioned bad experiences, past relationships, you know. And I also
27:37
Speaker 1: heard you talk about trying to change that narrative so
27:39
Speaker 1: we have more positive experiences in our life. How do
27:42
Speaker 1: we do that? You know what? First of all, I
27:50
Speaker 1: always get asked the hard, hard questions. I think by
27:57
Speaker 1: unpacking your baggage and examining your life slowly but surely,
28:02
Speaker 1: but examining it with love, because I think that how
28:06
Speaker 1: you love defines your life. I really do. I believe
28:11
Speaker 1: the people you come in contact with and how you
28:14
Speaker 1: love and your willingness to connect to them defines your life.
28:20
Speaker 1: If you talk to anyone who's past and anyone that
28:23
Speaker 1: you've been in contact with that leaves a lasting impression
28:26
Speaker 1: on your life, it's people that literally, in that moment
28:30
Speaker 1: of time that you saw them, even if it were
28:33
Speaker 1: just a minute or five years or twenty years or
28:36
Speaker 1: a week. They loved you. They wanted to connect with you,
28:40
Speaker 1: they wanted to leave something in you. I think that's
28:45
Speaker 1: what defines it. And it's like Brene Brown says, you
28:49
Speaker 1: are only as connected to other people as you are
28:52
Speaker 1: to yourself, and a lot of people are not connected
28:55
Speaker 1: to themselves. They don't want to be is too much work,
29:01
Speaker 1: But um, I want to be I do? I do?
29:06
Speaker 1: Are you? Are you searching for a new calling? Because
29:08
Speaker 1: you know in the book you talk about how acting
29:10
Speaker 1: was your calling, and you know, like now at this moment,
29:12
Speaker 1: you feel like you're searching for a new calling. Maybe
29:20
Speaker 1: maybe I'm searching for a new calling. Someone said that
29:23
Speaker 1: I'm searching for agency. You know I'm probably searching for
29:28
Speaker 1: that too, you know what. I think I'm searching for
29:32
Speaker 1: a life where I'm not leading it with so much fear.
29:37
Speaker 1: You talk about that a lot too. Yeah, you don't
29:39
Speaker 1: want that to be the five words that anybody could say, Yeah,
29:44
Speaker 1: you're still you're still leading with fear at this point? Oh,
29:48
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I think I have fear, But I mean,
29:51
Speaker 1: I know we have fear, But are you leading with it?
29:56
Speaker 1: I don't know how much I'm leading. There are times
29:59
Speaker 1: sometimes I do. I do. I'm in the public eye.
30:05
Speaker 1: You know, I have one misstep and it's it's out there, listen.
30:13
Speaker 1: I don't have the bandwidth for that. I'm not. I
30:15
Speaker 1: don't have the DNA for that. I don't and I don't.
30:18
Speaker 1: I don't really think anyone does. And if someone does,
30:21
Speaker 1: I don't believe you agree, because people act like when
30:25
Speaker 1: you are, when you become famous or a celebrity, that
30:28
Speaker 1: you're supposed to understand this is what comes with it,
30:30
Speaker 1: and anybody can say anything about you. Absolutely, But I
30:33
Speaker 1: also feel like it does still hurt, and it's still
30:36
Speaker 1: not absolutely and it's right, and it still does make
30:40
Speaker 1: you have some type of fear sometimes to take a
30:41
Speaker 1: risk or take a chance, because you already know that
30:45
Speaker 1: you know people potentially will come at you. You put
30:48
Speaker 1: yourself out there, fear of exposure, fear of fear of failure,
30:53
Speaker 1: fear of all of that. But like I said last night,
30:57
Speaker 1: the one thing I will say about myself is it's
30:59
Speaker 1: like they say, courage is just fear said with prayers
31:04
Speaker 1: that I'm still willing to jump. That's what I found
31:08
Speaker 1: out about the young Viola, even when she was running
31:11
Speaker 1: from the bullies and sticking up for a male finger.
31:18
Speaker 1: Even when she was still running, she was still fighting.
31:22
Speaker 1: She was a survivor and um, but the fear is
31:27
Speaker 1: still there. You talk about critics too, what's your opinion
31:30
Speaker 1: on critics. I think you had an interesting take when
31:32
Speaker 1: you talked about critics and people critique in your work. Well,
31:36
Speaker 1: I believe that, once again my quote was taken out
31:42
Speaker 1: of context. Might I add, here's the thing. When you're
31:47
Speaker 1: an actor, to be a geek for ten seconds or
31:51
Speaker 1: twenty seconds. When you're an actor, you create a character
31:56
Speaker 1: based on a human being. Okay, you cannot be an
31:59
Speaker 1: actor in your room. You could be a painter in
32:01
Speaker 1: your room. You can't be an actor. You can't put
32:03
Speaker 1: on your resume. I played King Lear in the basement
32:06
Speaker 1: of my apartment in the Bronx. You need an audience,
32:09
Speaker 1: you need a director, you need a script, you need
32:11
Speaker 1: all of that. It's a collaborative art form that requires
32:14
Speaker 1: a lot of different artists to make it work. Okay,
32:18
Speaker 1: So if you're not contributing to the work and the
32:22
Speaker 1: enlightenment of the work, then the only thing you're doing
32:26
Speaker 1: is hurting. You're destroying. You're not wakening people up. If
32:33
Speaker 1: you're not approaching it with an artistic esthetic, then the
32:39
Speaker 1: only thing that you're doing is what someone is doing.
32:42
Speaker 1: I don't know on a takedown page. And if you're
32:47
Speaker 1: taking someone down, it's hurtful and people need to know
32:53
Speaker 1: that there's someone on the other side of that. Even
32:57
Speaker 1: with a failed performance or performance did not like that.
33:01
Speaker 1: That that has nothing to do with taking someone down.
33:05
Speaker 1: That does not give you the license to take someone down.
33:09
Speaker 1: You just don't like it. So that's all I meant
33:13
Speaker 1: with critics. I'm not saying I would never say that
33:17
Speaker 1: anyone is worthless. I would never say that that. That's
33:21
Speaker 1: not even my style. Even in private, I don't say
33:25
Speaker 1: that you could talk to my people. Okay, but if
33:29
Speaker 1: you're serving an artistic purpose, absolutely, But if you're not,
33:35
Speaker 1: you're just on a path to Destrychelle Obama reach out
33:38
Speaker 1: to you at all because she's so connected to the
33:40
Speaker 1: culture that help people reach out to you and say no,
33:43
Speaker 1: and she doesn't listen. Michelle Obama is an absolute goddess.
33:50
Speaker 1: Can we agree on that? Absolutely? Okay, she doesn't have
33:54
Speaker 1: to reach out. She has a much higher calling. Okay,
33:57
Speaker 1: that that is bigger than social media than pop culture.
34:03
Speaker 1: There is something higher that she has to protect, you know,
34:07
Speaker 1: and and I recognize that and I respect that greatly.
34:13
Speaker 1: In my calling chapter, you know, when you talk about acting,
34:16
Speaker 1: you know, even though you found your calling, it still
34:18
Speaker 1: seem you were dealing with imposter syndrome. Yeah, have you
34:22
Speaker 1: gotten over that? No? No, And here's the thing once again,
34:29
Speaker 1: social media has bow guarded the whole definition of what
34:33
Speaker 1: it means to be an artist, and so everyone feels
34:36
Speaker 1: like being an artist is you know, you gotta look
34:39
Speaker 1: the part. You gotta know what designers to wear, you
34:42
Speaker 1: gotta know what directors you want to work with, and
34:45
Speaker 1: all of that that has nothing to do with being
34:47
Speaker 1: an actor. Actors have a ninety five percent unemployment rate. Listen,
34:53
Speaker 1: one percent of the profession makes fifty thousand dollars a
34:55
Speaker 1: year or more point zero four percent of famous. Okay,
35:00
Speaker 1: And here's the thing about actors too. You always want
35:05
Speaker 1: to be better, especially if you have especially if you
35:10
Speaker 1: want to be excellent and you finally see your work,
35:12
Speaker 1: You're always thinking about something you could have done different.
35:16
Speaker 1: Everybody does it, and everybody's afraid of being found out.
35:22
Speaker 1: It's just a part of what we do. I'm not
35:24
Speaker 1: saying it keeps you up at night. I'm not saying
35:27
Speaker 1: that it destroys you. I'm saying that it's sort of
35:30
Speaker 1: And you know what, I think that everyone who has
35:33
Speaker 1: a higher image of their work, what they want to do.
35:38
Speaker 1: Everyone has it. Writers have it. I'm sure you have
35:41
Speaker 1: it to a certain extent of always wanting to be better.
35:44
Speaker 1: Even when someone says, oh you were great, You're like, okay,
35:47
Speaker 1: thank you, but I could have done that one saying better, Well,
35:49
Speaker 1: real did you have you think was closest to perfection
35:52
Speaker 1: for you? Closest to it, not saying it was perfect,
35:55
Speaker 1: but for yourself you feel like this is the one
35:58
Speaker 1: that was like I killed it more than anything. You know.
36:03
Speaker 1: That's a hard one, you know what I'm gonna say.
36:07
Speaker 1: And I and I don't know why I keep it
36:09
Speaker 1: was very very small role that I had to and um,
36:13
Speaker 1: get on up with Chadwick Boseman. I played his mother.
36:18
Speaker 1: I enjoyed that role. Yeah, man, Oh you know what
36:24
Speaker 1: I tell you. I saw a guy for yesterday he said,
36:27
Speaker 1: you guys were roommates for second coming up. He was like,
36:30
Speaker 1: you're He was like, make sure you mentioned, um, you
36:34
Speaker 1: know we were roommates for He said, it was some
36:36
Speaker 1: crazy situation where like there was a lot of people
36:39
Speaker 1: living in there's a lot of people. It was a
36:40
Speaker 1: very big apartment, Upper West Side. Yeah, how many were
36:43
Speaker 1: living in the apartment. There was only four of us
36:46
Speaker 1: living in the apartment. There was a Yeah, you had
36:50
Speaker 1: a lot of crazy living arrangements China, and that was
36:53
Speaker 1: one of them. Okay, let me get two questions this
36:56
Speaker 1: this week. But you spoke about out of body experiences
36:59
Speaker 1: in the book, and you know you had them when
37:01
Speaker 1: you were younger. I totally understand that because I had
37:03
Speaker 1: those two But what do you think those experiences we're
37:05
Speaker 1: trying to show us about ourselves, Just the infinite power
37:10
Speaker 1: we have in our minds, and infinite power to transport ourselves,
37:19
Speaker 1: to explore our imagination, which is an infinite field where
37:25
Speaker 1: we can redefine, reimagine, and the power to um relieve
37:34
Speaker 1: ourselves of the burden sometimes of negative negativity. That everything
37:42
Speaker 1: we have is within ourselves. That's what it it taught me.
37:46
Speaker 1: Now I can't do it anymore, so I don't know
37:49
Speaker 1: what that means. It seems like a thing that happened
37:50
Speaker 1: when you was young. When you get older, it don't
37:52
Speaker 1: happen anymore exactly. I guess you know, when I you know,
37:56
Speaker 1: the world gets at you and the world begins to
38:00
Speaker 1: put up barriers around your life and boundaries that you
38:04
Speaker 1: didn't have when you were younger. And yeah, but I
38:09
Speaker 1: think that's what it teaches you, is that everything you have,
38:13
Speaker 1: you have within you and in the secret, Silent shame?
38:17
Speaker 1: Why that chapter? Why do you think we as black
38:19
Speaker 1: people think we're doing ourselves a favor by keeping secrets
38:24
Speaker 1: for me? And it's just my opinion. I feel, especially
38:28
Speaker 1: as a black woman, that if I think shame is
38:34
Speaker 1: a big thing with black folk, and I think it's
38:38
Speaker 1: post traumatic slave syndrome, that there's a lot of things
38:42
Speaker 1: that we weren't allowed to do. Look a white man
38:46
Speaker 1: in the eye, smile, look at a white woman. There's
38:53
Speaker 1: so many things that we were punished for. But more importantly,
38:59
Speaker 1: as a black woman, I feel like a lot of
39:01
Speaker 1: the times when I keep things in it's because I
39:03
Speaker 1: know I'm not going to be protected. I know that
39:07
Speaker 1: there's not going to be anyone out there that's gonna
39:09
Speaker 1: rescue me. And I'm not saying I'm saying I'm not
39:16
Speaker 1: saying that I need rescuing. But you know what, we
39:19
Speaker 1: need each other, absolutely, we really do. And the lack
39:24
Speaker 1: of adoration, the lack of protection, makes you keep things
39:28
Speaker 1: within and makes you try to just muster through and
39:31
Speaker 1: strong back even if you're broken inside. And who cares
39:38
Speaker 1: about the inner pain of black folk? You better care
39:43
Speaker 1: because certainly the culture in the past has not cared,
39:47
Speaker 1: and we have an aversion to therapy as black folk.
39:52
Speaker 1: I think that's changing, man, I do think it's changing too.
39:55
Speaker 1: I completely agree with you, But I think that's why
40:00
Speaker 1: we keep things in blinding me. It's out right now.
40:03
Speaker 1: We always ask everybody Mount Rushmore of actors when they
40:07
Speaker 1: come her favorite. Who is the mount Rushmore actors to you? Yeah,
40:16
Speaker 1: miss Tyson, I talked to her three hours before she passed.
40:20
Speaker 1: That's that's just She's she was everything to me. I'm sorry,
40:25
Speaker 1: and that performance to me goes down as one of
40:28
Speaker 1: the greatest performances ever in the history of cinema. I
40:31
Speaker 1: still I don't even think they write roles like that
40:34
Speaker 1: anymore for actors, especially black actors, you know, so absolutely,
40:41
Speaker 1: And as far as black actors, you know, I'd say this,
40:44
Speaker 1: and I know Denzel probably is going to roll his eyes,
40:47
Speaker 1: but I'm sorry, I'm a friend and a fan. I
40:49
Speaker 1: think Denzel is fantastic, absolutely great. But there's a lot
40:54
Speaker 1: of great actors out there. I love that actors. There
40:58
Speaker 1: you go, and so many great topics in this book
41:01
Speaker 1: that I know we can go in depth on at
41:03
Speaker 1: a later time. Fibruaries. That's this topic we're always talking
41:06
Speaker 1: about up here with black women. I know you have
41:08
Speaker 1: the docuseries hungry for answers, and I'm excited to talk
41:13
Speaker 1: about too, so you know, hopefully we'll get to continue
41:16
Speaker 1: the conversation about those things too. And I love how
41:19
Speaker 1: you end the book because I've never heard somebody talk
41:22
Speaker 1: about their eight year old self protecting them now. It's
41:26
Speaker 1: always the other way around, So I would I just
41:30
Speaker 1: want to know how you even got to that point
41:32
Speaker 1: where you feel like the eight year old you was
41:34
Speaker 1: protecting you Now. A therapist told me that. He said,
41:39
Speaker 1: I don't think you need to heal the eight year old.
41:42
Speaker 1: I think the eight year old was pretty tough. She's
41:45
Speaker 1: a good custle. You're a good cussle, you know, Like
41:48
Speaker 1: to the audible version, I'm like, are you like Samuel
41:50
Speaker 1: Jackson level? But you know, I love it right congratulations,
41:59
Speaker 1: right now, pick it up. It's Viola Davis is the
42:01
Speaker 1: breakfast club Gomon