‘Making Space With Hoda Kotb’: Viola Davis

foreign okay I have been bursting bursting to talk to Viola Davis she is to me just stunning the kind of person you want to get to know on so many levels yes she is arguably one of the most in a business winner of an Academy Award and now she's only a Grammy away from having the coveted egot the Emmy Grammy Oscar and Tony but I couldn't wait to hear from Biola the woman the one who survived an unthinkable childhood the one who witnessed abuse and endured hardship so painful few people would have survived but Viola she overcame she persevered and she grew how she talks about all of it in her new Memoir finding me just talking to Viola I wept in admiration in awe and in Celebration I can't I can't I can't I can't wait it's highlighted it's dog-eared I bound your book The PDF and made a little book out of it so I could carry it with me oh can I just tell you something it is so meaningful and beautiful and touching and um I don't even know how to describe it but it moved me to my very core I think to my very core it's so incredible I mean thank you I thought I knew you and then I read this and now I'm like wow I'm so moved and I'm also kind of mad at myself because I've interviewed you so many times and I realized I must not have ever asked the right questions because this book is just so full of you so let me ask you how it feels during this moment here you are you've put your life on the page and you're handing it out like a piece of your heart and you're saying this is me yeah um how does that part feel In This Moment terrifying it really does there's a lot of it's a lot of fear you know because I'm putting my life out there for the world to uh judge observe you know it's like that old saying I I know what I said I just don't know what you heard and I know what I wrote I just don't know how it's going to be received and I think that that is really ultimately what happens when you make yourself vulnerable it's like running naked in a crowded Stadium so it's terrifying well it is um so full of of heart and soul let me just start by saying and I think I speak for a lot of people in America I did not know what you have endured in your life as a young girl I knew that you had struggles I did not know you grew up hungry what does that mean to grow up hungry the hunger was just one part of it it's growing up hungry it's growing up um exposed to that level of abuse it's growing up feeling like an outsider the thing about being hungry is you don't think about anything else you get to school at eight by eight fifteen you're falling asleep you're listening to people who say oh my mom made me breakfast this morning I didn't want that cereal and you're thinking you didn't eat your cereal you had cereal with milk you know your brain um chemistry changes how you perceive the world changes and I'll tell you the worst part of all of it is the deep deep shame because how do you tell someone that you're hungry how do you how how do you say that to a teacher who's worried about maybe your grades how you're progressing in class it's a basic human need that's not being fulfilled and there's so much shame around it because you feel like why isn't it being fulfilled there was a line in your book where you said like one of your friends came over to your house opened the fridge and asked if you were moving because there was nothing in there yeah how how did you find food how did you find your basic needs so you could continue on your day you find it you know what I started to remember because it's memory right when you go back and it hits you um it's different almost than Nostalgia but so the memory is people who gave you money on the street I would go up to people and say do you have a quarter do you have 50 cents it's going to soup kitchens Catholic churches friendships where you know parents are going to make three meals a day so you form those friendships you go over to the house and you wait for the meal wow I mean there was there was this other part of the book I think it's a chapter you entitled running and you were literally as you call it hunted down by young boys chasing you calling you the n-word you were like in a sense running for your life yeah in those moments I can't imagine that was happening day after day that kind of horrific bullying it was day after day that's what it felt like now was I actually running from my life would they actually have killed me I don't know about that but that's what it felt like it's just like anxiety they say anxiety is just fear of death what I realized from a very early age was I was born in a world that I just didn't fit into and I did not have the language to understand the power of race the power of being dark skinned the potency of being different the power of that is just not how I was defined by those eight or nine boys it's how the world defined me it's that fear of being black what black meant in that in this powerful caste system we have of how you treat people based on perceived value and worth and I was worthless that's what it told me I was a child children cannot deal with the abstract right we don't have those building blocks and so it felt like I was running for my life and if I didn't have any arms to run into oh so I was just running and when you say no arms to run into you describe it's so poetic and sad it like struck me over and over in my heart but you even talked about how there weren't enough pages in the book to Chronicle all of the fights that went on inside your home what you were what you bore witness to what you felt helpless I I would imagine as a kid watching this in front of you you do it's it's it's the last of the acceptable violences is domestic violence nobody really cares I'll tell you that I I think it's a complicated issue to deal with and um so what happens is you sort of sweep it under the rug it becomes your sort of dirty Secret yeah but every time you faced it it is absolutely traumatic if I felt like I was running for my life from the eight or nine boys I felt that I had to go into a home where I was running from my life that's what it felt like when I would witness the violence between my mom and dad and I I I keep remembering these moments of violence that even happened at night in the middle of the street and not one window opened no one came out to help and I I and I look back on that now because as a kid we prayed that no one would see us and then as an adult I'm looking back and go why didn't anybody see us or help us or did they see us it becomes that complicated what was your survival technique like to live day in and day out in a home that felt like that and to go to school in a situation that felt like that you had to have some place where you little Viola went to to live how did you transport yourself well little violite had a whole technique of leaving my body it was pretty awesome by the way tell me um I'd always go into the bathroom and I would stay there for the longest time and I had a whole thing where I just would focus on one part of my body usually my finger and I'd shut everything down and after a certain amount of time I literally would leave my body and I'd go up to the ceiling I'd turn around and I would look at myself I dreamed I tried to achieve and I kept secrets he kept thinking I felt like the keeping of the secret the people not knowing it sort of helped me to survive I didn't understand anything um about Secrets actually eroding you that wasn't a part of my vocabulary my understanding of human emotion I just felt like if if no one knew then how they would see me is based on what I was achieving outside of my house uh-huh I recreated myself wow but when you recreate yourself in another reality from yourself the danger of that is you also disconnect yeah and that's what I did I disconnected same thing that I did when I sat on the toilet and the disconnection or like a lot of um people who go through trauma when they compartmentalize yeah which is also not good yeah that's what I did I compartmentalized I use drive and ambition to replace feeling and vulnerability did you ever feel like your stuff was unhealable like that was just going to be you well I wish I could uh store it away hmm but I had to unpack it yeah here's what I believe I believe that what connects us is not just the joy it's not just the achievements it's also the sadness yeah it's also the pain I feel that if I cannot share my pain with someone else the pain The Joy the achievements then it's not real connection but in order for me to share that for me to have the ability to share that I have to unpack it one of the first quotes in your book is about faith it says I think human beings must have faith or must look for Faith otherwise our life is is empty I feel like that constantly saved you yeah well absolutely which is the belief in things that you cannot see yeah because there's nothing else I think that I I was I didn't have anything else but I always compare you know my life to that image of the first man on earth looking out at the ocean and the mountains and the sky and maybe it's raining and there's thunder and lightning and he has no language because this is before language this is before psychology yeah this is before people were named this is before love or hate or anything and how then do you figure out life how then do you figure out meaning what how do you communicate in or anything in order to find it that's how I felt I have nothing and so chills right now on me so what you what you then rely on see this is the power of connection yes what you rely on are people who see you people who really maybe see the pain see the potential see the talent people who just love you and they carry you you know there was a moment obviously that changed your life and it was when you flipped on the TV and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman came on and Miss Cicely Tyson was starring in it uh what did you what did Young biola's eyes see in that moment magic I saw everything I saw what I wanted to be I um saw my possibilities I saw my value I saw it all in her and I was like that's it you know it was a path a blazing path for me and listen like I said my sister Dolores is an incredible teacher right now my sister Diane works for the Department of Agriculture in DC and um my sister Anita went to business school whatever and for all of us it changed us not even just in the acting field it lit um fire inside of us that wasn't in our lives before because your sister Dolores I think it was Dolores who told you we're not going to live like this what I mean to think that all of these sisters were raised in these really horrific circumstances yet somehow you grew all of you it wasn't like you weren't the one that got out what was it that was in the family that made that possible for all of the sisters to get out well first of all you have to Define getting out because I know me I do have some level of trauma and anxiety from the past sure so getting out in terms of my profession yeah um required Drive yes Drive is different than growth and healing now the getting out emotionally getting out is totally different which is why I wrote the book you don't get out that's what happens you have to reconcile um and own your story I didn't I cut it out like it was the fat on a awesome piece of filet mignon you cut out the fat and you recreate the story that you want to create the problem with that is that once again you make yourself tough you shut out the dark you also shut out the light and so that's what I realized when I was 28 is that I didn't get out hold up I didn't but I I didn't know how to sort of reconcile it how did you or did you ownership hmm that's what I did you either own your story or your story owns you I'm not ashamed of it because I know that every single part of it made me who I am I'm owning my story so people can be less alone and I'm also owning my story because I wanna love me Hoda I mean at some point I mean you know come on it's like you know I'm 56. you know I I was listening to Alicia Keys song I have a voice it's so powerful it's with Brandy Carlisle and every time I hear it I think to myself I'm 57 and I think to myself often like when did what took me so long to have it you know like you do all these things in life and you nod your head and I had that same Epiphany it's like am I going to be going to my grave with good enough that's all I deserve when did you when was it that you knew your worth when did you know your worth [Laughter] um I'm trying the only reason I'm silent is not because I don't have an answer is because I'm deciding if I want to say it or not because I'm and I should just say it it's a work in progress I started the journey in understanding the value of worth when I was 28 years old because as much as I said I don't want to be my mom I love love my mom but I want to be my mom I realized I was my mom she was my imprinter you know and I would say by the time I met my husband at 34 35 I knew that I was worth more than what I was accepting in my life before that time I always Define my life as um or life in general as a relay race so your purpose in life is just like a relay race great Runners yeah and each Runner runs it like a race and they pass a baton on to the next great Runner and they run their leg up the race and that's how life goes but man I just as I'm getting older I'm realizing life is about connection but it's about you everything comes from you so each of those great runners is just you at a different age it's young viola surviving that path but getting that baton to 28 year old Viola who says I'm gonna take it I'm going to take it by All I'm gonna go to Juilliard I'm going to do this or whatever I'm gonna work in the theater I'm gonna do the best I can or whatever and then hits a wall and goes oh my God I'm gonna give it to the 38 39 year old Viola who's getting married and understands it now I gotta now take another entity into consideration and now I'm at 56 year old viola and one of the reasons why I wrote the book one once again is because I felt that 54 I was dropping the Baton because I was looking back too much but life that's how I see it it's a whole relay race of you now with your upbringing and you you have Genesis your beautiful daughter were you as after you got married yes I definitely want kids no I definitely don't want kids I'm not sure what I want to do about kids given what you had seen definitely felt like I didn't want to get married or have children yeah I I didn't see being alone as not sexy I thought it was sort of sexy yeah I would see like Linda Evans at awards shows and um I thought that was pretty cool that she went by herself I thought that's a strong woman I still feel that way by the way I hit it okay I I I I I let's just say that I hit it you would say that I've achieved a certain level of success and then I crashed and burned because I was like this is it why is this it because I stopped that success and not as significance and I remember running into Lorraine Toussaint and I remember asking her Lorraine why did you adopt your daughter and she paused for the longest time and she said I didn't want series regular to be on my tombstone wow wow and it hit me that my entire life has been defined by achievement taken the place of meaning oh man I'm so conscious even with Genesis that I always want to say you know you're not an extension of Mommy's dreams she's her own person but at the same time I do sort of believe that she's she's my legacy She's My Hope so she's my meaning I just rewatched your Oscar acceptance speech and at the end you talked about your parents and you talked about how grateful to God you were that those were the people who were chosen to give birth to you and after reading your book I found that so profound knowing what you had been through why did you say that here's what I know about my life what I learned from a very young age is radical love radical forgiveness radical transformation what I was giving with my parents is an opportunity to grow they gave me that ingredient that could either have killed me or had me grow in a way that some people never experienced in their entire lives and that's why when I finally ended the book I ended the book with God kept me exactly where I was yes yes one of my favorite paragraphs in the whole book and there are so many good ones is this one the question still Echoes how did I claw my way out there is no out every painful memory every Mentor every friend and foe served as a chisel a Leap Pad that has shaped me the imperfect but blessed sculpture that is Viola is still growing and still being chiseled my Elixir I'm no longer ashamed of me I own everything that has ever happened to me the parts that were the source of Shame are actually my my warrior fuel oh that's awesome that is so awesome I underlined it I'm highlighting it when I get the real book by my bed it is so incredibly beautiful um and again just lastly as we wrap up the title is Finding Me have you have you found her oh yeah okay I have you know I don't I I said it you know little Viola is celebrating she's sitting right next to me and she's happy that she's finally being embraced well Viola it's a beautiful beautiful book I've been waiting for this book and people are going to devour this I think you're going to change I mean you've already changed a million people's lives but I have a feeling you're going to do a lot more with this thank you Viola I adore you thank you so much I'm keeping this okay I love you see ya okay bye-bye bye hey thanks for watching our YouTube channel find your favorite recipes celebrity interviews uplifting stories shop our favorite deals and so much more with the Today app download it now

Channel: TODAY

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Id: oPKgOYRyDac

Length: 25min 16sec (1516 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 21 2022