BEST CELEBRITYS BLOGS: Viola Davis Explains That ‘HTGAWM’ Scene

Monday, June 1, 2015

Viola Davis Explains That ‘HTGAWM’ Scene

If you watched ‘How To Get Away With Murder’ last fall, then I know you remember THAT scene: when Viola Davis sat down in front of her mirror and basically exposed herself, taking off her makeup, then her fake eyelashes, and then her wig. It was a powerful visual representation of someone stripping herself bare. Viola explained why she insisted on that scene at a ‘HTGAWM’ panel last week.

Viola said:

Before I got the role, I said, 'Shonda, Pete, Betsy, I'm not gonna do this unless I can take my wig off.' It's like Rosalind Russell said, acting is like stripping naked in front of an audience and turning around really slowly. One of the reasons I stopped watching TV was that I didn't see myself on TV. I'm not just saying as a woman of color or a woman of 49, but just as a person. I see a lot of sexy women who are hard, cold, look like they have windswept hair and lip gloss and light makeup when they say it's no makeup. I work out five days a week, and I'm still not a size 2. So I wanted to see a real woman on TV.

There was something for me that I didn't buy about Annalise in private. It felt like who she was in private had to be diametrically opposed to who she was in public. And so in order to do that, I felt like I had to physically take the wig off. I mean, I have no eyebrows. I have eyelashes that I put on, and there was something extremely vulnerable about that act — and I know it seems like a very simple act at the end of the day — but for me, that simple act really surmounted to something very powerful in the end, because what it was was someone being very, very private in public, which is absolutely the cornerstone of what we do as artists.

I didn't just want to walk in heels like I was a supermodel. Who does that? That was how that scene came about. I didn't want to wake up in bed thinking that this is how I really look. I wanted to woman up, and I wanted to actor up, too."

I remember being absolutely awe-struck by that scene. She didn’t say a word of dialogue, yet you knew EXACTLY how vulnerable and weary Annalise was feeling at that moment, despite the cool and tough as nails exterior she presented to her law students, her clients, and her colleagues.