When Denzel [Washington] first called me on the phone after we'd just done a reading of the film ["Fences"]. He said, "Oh Viola it was so good, wasn't it?! I'm gonna tell Russell [Hornsby] to lose a little bit of weight and..." I was just sitting there thinking, why is he calling me? And I told him, "Denzel don't you tell me to lose weight!" He said, "I'm not telling you to lose weight! I can't believe you would say that."
Viola DavisThe internal sexism within womanhood is very ยญpredominant in Hollywood, because we all want to be ยญsuccessful. There's a plug to it: You all have to be skinny! You all have to be pretty! You all have to be likable, because that's the ยญformula that works. On an ยญexecutive level. On a power level. And it's not always the same working with black people, because of the internalized racism. The colorism.
Viola DavisSometimes people come in as a director, and they just want the result, and they barely want that to tell you the truth. Sometimes directors barely talk to the actors; they are so focused on the cinematic elements of the movie, getting the shot and getting the lighting right or getting the CGI effects right and all of that, and they just trust that you are just going to do what you do.
Viola Davis