Viola Davis: Actor is just a strange profession, it really is, that yo...

Relationships change us and make us grow.

Viola Davis

grows

I was like, 'What is this?' Until I found out it was stress related. That's how I internalized it. I don't do that anymore. My favorite saying in the world is, 'The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.' I am telling you, I have spent so much of my life not feeling comfortable in my skin. I am just so not there anymore.

Viola Davis

stress skins feelings

I just look at women sometimes and I just want to ask them, "Do you know how fabulous you are?"

Viola Davis

fabulous want looks

When you see what the deficit is, then you have to do something about it.

Viola Davis

deficit

The only thing that separates women of color from everyone else is opportunity.

Viola Davis

badass color opportunity

It's not anything that is just perpetuated by White America or just perpetuated by Black America. It's just a cultural understanding that you're just not a part of the equation when it comes to sexuality and I think that people mistake your lack of opportunity with the level of your talent.

Viola Davis

mistake opportunity thinking

At the end of the day, nobody can tell you how to tackle failure or how to handle change. The world is very good at encouraging you to go along with the status quo and at basking in your successes.

Viola Davis

the-end-of-the-day ends world

Sometimes you see how humanity can rise above any kind of cultural ills and hate that a person's capacity to love and communicate and forgive can be bigger than anything else.

Viola Davis

capacity-to-love hate humanity

And that's what people want to see when they go to the theater. I believe at the end of the day, they want to see themselves - parts of their lives they can recognize. And I feel if I can achieve that, it's pretty spectacular.

Viola Davis

the-end-of-the-day believe people

It would be great to bust through and make history. But what's more important is the opportunity to continue to get roles that are complicated and wonderful, to be a part of the narrative and to get to do what our counterparts are able to do. It doesn't just stop at holding an award.

Viola Davis

awards important opportunity

It feels really good to embrace exactly who I am and be my sexy, to be my sexualized, to be my woman.

Viola Davis

embrace sexy who-i-am

I felt that there could be some anger. There could be some frustration that he has the tendency to take over the room, but I wanted all of those things to show in the grays of her hair and the fact that her hips are much wider than they probably were when she met him. I wanted it to show in the fact that her hair is not done up all the time. I wanted it to be a part of that every day that wasn't in your face. Because then for me, that's overacting. To me, that's not "being." I wanted Rose [in "Fences"] to be many things.

Viola Davis

frustration rose hair

I love Wal-Mart. You can put that down. I love Wal-Mart. My husband and I hang out there.

Viola Davis

my-husband hanging-out husband

I think that you always want to gravitate towards people who absolutely are great at what they do and go for authenticity.

Viola Davis

want people thinking

We as artists cannot be politicians. We as artists can only be truth-tellers.

Viola Davis

politician artist

They say, 'To serve is to love,' and I think to serve is to heal, too.

Viola Davis

heal thinking

I didn't see myself any different from my white counterparts in school. I just didn't! I thought I could do what they did. And what I didn't do well, I thought people were going to give me the opportunity to do well, because maybe they saw my talent, so they would give me a chance. I had no idea that they would see me completely different.

Viola Davis

opportunity ideas school

Even when I get the fried-chicken special of the day, I have to dig into it like it's filet mignon.

Viola Davis

fried-chicken chickens special

I have been given a lot of roles that are downtrodden, mammy-ish.

Viola Davis

downtrodden given roles

I needed to make my wig ogg because I no longer wanted to apologize for who I am

Viola Davis

hilarious hair inspiring

Actor is just a strange profession, it really is, that you could be in front of the same people for years, and all of a sudden one thing happens, and it finally clicks.