I think that sometimes, everything that you are can crumble under the weight of Eurocentric and white-centric notions. There’s nowhere for someone like me to go – nowhere. I got a wide nose, big lips, dark skin – I mean, where do I go? Look at me – I might as well walk through the doors of Juilliard and walk my ass out!”

I think that failure and hardship are interesting learning tools,” she explains. “Because I think that once you hit bottom, you either stay there or figure out how to rise up. And I think that that’s what happens with all of us, that you either survive or you don’t.” Viola used acting as a tool to look beyond her circumstances. After graduating from Rhode Island College a theatre major, she was accepted into the prestigious Juilliard School, of which she is critical for its crushing white-centrism, its desire to create the “perfect white actor”, “something devoid of joy but steeped in technique”. “There is no set rule to how a character should be played,” she tells me emphatically. “That was my issue with Juilliard. Whatever character I play, I’m not gonna play with the same palette as my white counterparts, because I’m different. My voice is different. Who I am is different. It was like, ‘Your voice is too deep, you’re too hard. So you have to be light, but you have to be light like a 90lb white girl, you can’t be your light.’ Viola Davis is one of the best actors of this generation and has won multiple awards in acting, like Oscar, Emmy, and Tony. She tells her extraordinary journey filled with poverty, love, hatred, racism, and achievements in her life in this book. I am a dark-skinned woman. Culturally, there is a spoken and unspoken narrative rooted in Jim Crow. It tells us that dark-skinned women are simply not desirable. All the attributes that are attached to being a woman-desirable, vulnerable, needing to be rescued-don't apply to us. In the past, we've been used as chattel, fodder for inhumane experimentation, and it has evolved into invisibility."

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I love the relationship she shares with her mom… imma go ahead and call my mother a great love of mine because SHE JUST IS!!! 💚💚💚 thank you for helping me see this Vee. HER authentic FEELING ALIVE moments (such as working on “Seven Guitars”….filming “”Fences….and that “Broadway” really is as grand as dreamed ….and the growth & gift to filming “How to Get Away With Murder” series …..respecting the real craft of artistry ….relationships….(no longer ashamed for who she is)….

Feeling like I was in the room listening to her story made me want to reach out and hug her and let her know that she is worthy and how her light shines through in the world. I just wanted her to know that she is loved, and I wanted to hug her family. But thinking about it from the perspective of the entire universe, distilling the novel to its aching soul, it could be the story of many other women, women who still need to make peace with their past, women who struggle to put an end to the abusive streak they're enduring. Women who need to justify their choices and hopes. Women who forgot how to be without bruises and cuts. The way in which I can relate to this memoir is astounding… I had no clue that I shared so many things with Miss. Vee!As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. They are bogarted, reinvented to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone who is searching for a way to understand and overcome a complicated past, let go of shame, and find acceptance. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be...you. College started badly for Viola, who felt she could not permit herself to study acting. Viola feared an entertainment career would not help her support herself, and she didn't want to live in poverty like her parents. Thus Viola took English classes and fell into a deep depression. In sophomore year, Viola found her courage, decided to be a theater major and was on her way career-wise. Nevertheless, college was a challenge in other ways. Over the years, Davis has been open about her career path and the prejudices and racism that she faced. However, she has never spoken about the abuse she endured as a child, nor the shame she felt due to food and housing insecurities. Now, ahead of the publication of her forthcoming memoir, Finding Me, Davis sits down with Oprah Winfrey in a conversation that sparks astonishing revelations, deep remembrance, understanding and forgiveness.

This memoir really resonated with me and I was on the edge of my seat while listening to her life story and truth she found after finding her way out of the darkness. After high school, Viola went to Rhode Island College then on to Juilliard to study acting. She provides the bleak statistics surrounding the film industry and how few actors and actresses are actually able to make it in this space. We all know it's competitive but the information she notes is stark. She starred in roles on Broadway then made an entrance into film and TV. She took most jobs where she could and frequently battled the whitewashing in Hollywood. When Viola did succeed, she sometimes experienced self doubt, with industry standards, in part, to blame.

This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn’t always see me. Can we all exude a bit more kindness and compassion and freaking assistance when someone is struggling? NO ONE can see the unimaginable battles each individual is facing in life. Davis wears coat, Haney. Earrings, Soko. Styling: Elizabeth Stewart. Hair: Jamika Wilson. Makeup: Autumn Moultrie. Set Design: Natalie Shriver. Photograph: Mary Rozzi/The Guardian Paul and I haven’t even finished the first season of “How to Get Away With Murder”, yet….we are late to watch it….but we are loving it ……. Finding Me is a raw and honest memior about growing up in abject poverty with an abusive and alcoholic father. Surviving child sexual abuse/incest and coping with systemic racism to become an Oscar winning actress.