While many of us adjusted to a new way of life at home during lockdown, Viola used the opportunity of being in isolation to reflect on her own experiences of feeling isolated over the years. Here are 10 things we discovered about Viola from watching her interviews with Marv and Oprah. Showing us her vulnerability, passion and personality, the interviews are avid viewing. Neither were interviews about what it’s like being Viola now, a household movie-star but a chance to hear about her life before the camera, the battles that have shaped her and the inner strength she uncovered that guided her to living as her authentic self. The book impacted Oprah after she read the first paragraph and she instantly knew it had to be one of her Book Club recommendations. Marv’s was done online while Oprah invited Viola to her home in Hawaii for an intimate and honest conversation to discuss her new memoir Finding Me. If you missed Viola Davis’ fascinating interview with British TV presenter Maverine Cole for Fane online and you’ve not yet watched the iconic interview with the Hollywood actress and television legend Oprah Winfrey Oprah + Viola: A Netflix Special Event then you’re in for a treat.īoth hosts spoke to the Oscar-winning star and most celebrated Black actress in Oscar’s history.

Read on for what we learnt… Finding Me: A Memoir by Viola Davis was Oprah’s Book Club pick Just as she begins to climb out of her family’s cycle of poverty, she is faced with a reminder of the past when she first opens the door to the apartment she is subletting during her first year at Juilliard.Viola Davis has been speaking openly and honestly about aspects of her private life for the first time in two interviews. All of these contribute to the extreme shame that Viola feels about her circumstances, contributing to her desire to exorcise or “detox” this part of her life it is what stands in the way of her reconciling her childhood self with her identity as an adult. The conditions of the apartment highlight specific aspects of Viola’s childhood: the abject poverty, food insecurity, lack of physical safety, and consistent trauma. The apartment is located in a condemned building it is extremely unsafe because faulty wiring causes fires to break out frequently there is rarely any electricity, heat, gas, or running water the place is rat-infested, with rodents coming out in droves at night and destroying everything in the apartment and it is a place where Viola’s family experiences harassment from their neighbors. As a symbol, it represents the challenges and adversities of Viola’s childhood. Nicknamed simply “128,” the apartment comes to serve as a codeword for “hell” among her and her sisters. An important symbol in the book is Viola and her family’s first apartment in Central Falls, 128 Washington Street.

Finding Me by Viola Davis