LOS ANGELES — Actress and producer Viola Davis gave a rousing speech about leadership and authenticity to a well-heeled crowd of Hollywood power players Wednesday morning at The Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment breakfast.
Davis, who was being honored with the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award, said that she doesn’t always come to mind when she thinks of the idea of leadership — Martin Luther King Jr. does — but that she is trying through her production company to embrace women of color as they really are.
“There is no limit to how we see narratives with people of color,” Davis said to a rapt crowd that included Mandy Moore, Lupita Nyong’o, Awkwafina, Rita Wilson, “Roma” breakout Yalitza Aparicio and Kesha. “There is only so much I am going to kowtow to this business.”
She said she and her husband, Julius Tennon, started JuVee Productions because she was tired of celebrating movies that didn’t have “me in it.”
“I don’t mean me Viola,” Davis said. “I mean me as a black woman.”
She urged those in power in Hollywood to show more authentic black female characters. “My main message is ‘stop taming us,’ she said. “Everything that we are inside is what makes art in this world rich … There is something to be said about being wild. Steve McQueen is wild. Barry Jenkins. Ryan Coogler … These people who just dare. Who say you cannot silence me.”
Even when there are black characters, she said, they’re reduced to being maternal, to being the savior, to being denied sexuality, to being there to, “Make that white character feel better.”
“What is in my heart is I cannot lead with bull—-,” she said. “I cannot lead with lying. I cannot lead with the lying about what the road is out there.”
Her company recently closed a first-look feature production deal with Amazon Studios, where they will produce a film about pioneering politician Shirley Chisholm. Davis will star as the New York congresswoman.
