I heard you say you learned empathy from
the way you grew up and the obstacles you faced.
So how do you continue to practice
empathy every day and in turn show your
daughter that?
Well that's a huge thing right there.
Having a daughter.
It changes your life.
It shifts you in a way; it makes
your, that lining
of your heart a lot thinner.
There is a cap on greatness
and success.
There's a lot of disillusionment with that.
I have to say that it's everything that I
thought it would be to get to this point in
my career.
And it's everything that I didn't think that
it would be. And that's not necessarily
good. I'm just being honest with you.
A lot of times you're tired.
The responsibility that comes with it;
the misunderstanding that comes, you're
misunderstood a lot.
But then I realize that that's
all I work towards with success.
I thought that that's what you achieve,
and once you achieve that, you know, you're
ready to go to your grave.
And I didn't realize the final step which
is significance.
So I can plant a seed literally not
just in my daughter, in many people.
I want that whatever I plant in people
to be something positive because
I know when someone planted it in me
it helped me to get out of abject
poverty, helped me to get out of trauma,
all of that.
So would you say being a role model to
Genesis is your most important job?
Absolutely.
It's— if you screw up that job, nothing
else matters.
But the love I have for her is just
so tremendous.
I tell her that all the time, it's like, "Genesis,
nobody's ever going to love you like Mommy
loves you, not even the love of your life."
It's, it's, it's, a life force literally.
It's just it's it feels like you don't need
batteries, nothing.
Made me want to call my mom.
Call your momma!
There is no love like a mother's love.
So how do you ultimately want your story to
inspire her generation which are going to be
the generation of the game changers, hopefully.
There is a saying that power
concedes nothing without a demand.
That there are forces in this world, there are always
forces in this world that are not
about your life.
They don't care about your health.
They don't care about your joy.
And so without a demand, without
those warriors, heroes
strapping on their armor to go
out there and fight it and
Live a life that — where you're just not fighting
for you then those power
sources will
win in the end.
So you have to see your life as something
bigger than just you.
You have to.
You just do.
And if you—
And when did you realize the importance of
that and it's significance not success?
It's been gradual but definitely since
my success with my career.
It just sort of woke me up.
I got it.
And it— I'll tell you, when you get it, too.
You get it when you get older.
When you get older all those things that
meant everything when you were 28
because 28 is always my age —
28, 28, 28.
You know.
As soon as I hit 40 then 50
then all of a sudden the whole definition
of my life shifted.
It just did.
And you are one of the most
decorated actors of our generation.
A wife, a mother, an activist,
a survivor.
But when the final curtain falls, how do you
want the world to remember
Viola Davis?
You know what,
she grew up up in the Deep South and she saw an
indoor toilet for the first time.
Just from a toilet.
So