Viola Davis: How to Get Away With Being Amazing
ABC's How to Get Away With Murder may be only nine episodes old, but it's already one of the most important shows on television. Owing mostly to its sharp characters and its larger-than-life, frequently insane storytelling, HTGAWM is to the criminal justice system as Battlestar Galactica was to NASA.
Its biggest appeal is undeniable: This is the Viola Davis show. Like Empire's Taraji P. Henson and American Horror Story's Jessica Lange, Davis is part of this strange but welcome new trend of overqualified actresses elevating trash television to the realm of the sublime. Davis's performance as Professor Annalise Keating is truly something to behold. Vacillating between ferocity and heartache (sometimes in the span of a split second), every week she lays bare the inner workings of a complicated woman. And that's before removing her wig on-camera.
Related: 'How to Get Away With Murder' Sneak Peek: Annalise Starts the Search for Her Husband
Fresh off accepting the Screen Actors Guild Award for her role in HTGAWM with an inspiring, instantly viral speech, Davis sat down with reporters (on the show's lecture hall set!) to discuss her character, misconceptions about her career, and, of course, those wigs.
The show has paid special attention to Annalise's wigs and makeup; do these onscreen transformations symbolize whether she's putting up a front or not?
I do like getting to play with that. A part of it is probably less symbolic than what people make it out to be. I think that's how the audience perceives it, but as an actor I'm just playing a woman getting ready for work or getting ready to go to bed at night. I'm one of those women that wears wigs — I have a wig on now — so it's, OK, how does Annalise get ready in the morning? Specifically, how does she put on her makeup? How does she put on her wig? It's a private moment, which is the building block of acting. And that's simply what it is. It is great to play that because I think it's a part of being a woman that no one wants to see. It's not pretty, you know?
It's almost shocking.
It's shocking; it's really personal. I mean, I think that we like to see the personal things that stay pretty and sexy for men, and the parts that aren't we kind of sweep under the rug. But I like the dust that's under the rug. I say pull the rug up and show it. It's a window into the life of who we are as women. And the masks we have to put on to be acceptable to the world.
It's widely perceived that you signed on to this project just as your film career began blowing up in a big, big mainstream way. What was it about HTGAWM that made you go, "That's the thing that I'm going to do with my time now"?
It's just the role. It's the challenge of the role. I wasn't offered anything like this in film. And not to blast my film career or my career at all — I've been a very, very, very blessed actor — but I wasn't offered any roles like this. Where I could shine. Annalise was sexualized. She was messy. She was vulnerable. I wasn't getting offered roles like that. I was getting offered roles like, "Come in for eight days," I shoot the role, I'm number four or number eight on the call sheet, and then some of my scenes may or may not have been cut. You'd see me, and then inevitably in a review it'dsay, like, "Viola Davis was misused" or "wasn't used enough." "Wasn't enough" — that's all I hear in the back of my head. But the perception that I have a great career... I didn't want to be the third girl from the left anymore. This was a chance for me to not be third girl from the left.
How is life as a TV star going?
It's been humbling because the schedule is so brutal and I have to think so fast on my feet. And I have to say, sometimes it gets ahead of me. It's been humbling also in forgiving myself, because after filming, I'm like, [snaps] "I should've done that with that scene" or "I should've done that with that moment." But it's been very, very fulfilling for me to be exposed to a larger audience. I feel blessed. I cannot tell you guys how many actor friends I have, anyway — I mean, I don't hang with celebrities, so all the actor friends I have are people who can't get insurance or who barely make their insurance and want to work. They're great actors; they've been out there for 20 years; they can barely get an audition for a regional theater gig... So, I feel blessed. You know, I'm the one percent in the profession. It's like asking a billionaire how they feel. It's an embarrassment of riches. And especially working with [producer] Shonda Rhimes and [creator] Pete Nowalk and [producer] Betsy Beers, because they're people who get you. You know, I'm not walking on set after doing a cleanse for 10 days trying to get down to size 2 and having to have a perfect weave. They just accept me for exactly who I am. It's been great.
The show is premised around Professor Keating's very intimidating mentorship of young law students. Does that mentorship translate to the real world, between you and the younger actors in the cast?
No. Have you met them? They don't need a mentor. They really don't. The other day, actually, I was talking and realized nobody was listening to me. And I was like, "You guys, listen." And then they still weren't listening to me. So they don't need mentors. [Laughs.] It has not translated.
[When asked the same question, her young co-stars vehemently disagreed with this. As Karla Souza explains, "The students are kind of in awe of her, and that stays in real life." Aja Naomi King admits, "When I first met her, I was terrified." Souza concurrs: "It did take me about five months to actually feel like, OK, maybe she doesn't want to kill me." Matt McGorry outright raspberried when told of Davis's modest answer, and Jack Falahee elaborates, "Why she would say that is because she's so humble on set. She's naturally a leader, and we all look up to her. She gives a lot of advice, and it's great."]
Related: Matt McGorry Talks Selfies, 'Orange Is the New Black,' and 'How to Get Away With Murder'
What's the best part of working with Shonda Rhimes?
That she gets me. "Anytime you want to talk, I know exactly how you're feeling." It's good. That's what they say a friend is — they say a friend is someone who you go to and you're like, "I'm going through this, this, that, and that," and they just look at you and they go, "Me too." It's that camaraderie and that knowledge of working with women. It's great.
So who else will be murdered this season?
I can't say that to you. I can't tell you; otherwise I'd have to kill you, and I don't know how to get away with murder. [Laughs.]
How to Get Away With Murder returns with new episodes Thursday, Jan. 29 at 10 p.m. on ABC.
