Continuing the Silk Speaker Series, actress Viola Davis spoke at USF on Oct. 19 as part of CelebrateUSF, a weekend the university dedicates to celebrating students, alumni and their families. Davis is the second Silk Speaker event to sell out the venue, following Trevor Noah who participated in the Silk Series in August.
Viola Davis is one of just 21 people to achieve EGOT status, meaning she has won all four of the major American entertainment awards, an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony. Davis and her husband, Julius Tennon started their own production company, JuVee Productions. She is also the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, “Remember Me.”
Students, faculty, staff and community members formed a line wrapping around St. Ignatius Church to hear Davis speak. Ramiyah Betts, a sophomore double major in sociology and education said, “I’m a super huge fan of Viola Davis. So I just think it would be a really cool experience, seeing her speak in person, so I’m just really excited about that […] I would love to hear about her personal experience in the industry and if she has any advice for young African American women just trying to make it in the world.”
Brenna Malloy, who moderated the event, is a USF alumna from the class of 2013and a television director. She began the talk by asking Davis about a line from her memoir, where she called school a “salvation.”
“School was a salvation because it got us out of the house,” Davis said. “It was a house filled with poverty, alcoholism [and] domestic violence. We were bed-wetters, it was infested with rats. That house, for me, symbolized every shame.”
She continued, “I had to create my own world or else I would’ve died in other people’s. And at school I could create my own world, I could be the person I wasn’t allowed to be at home.”
To a question about the teachers in both school and acting, Davis said, “Certain teachers along the way […] gave me just enough of what I needed to get to the next place. My fourth grade teacher who thought I was funny, my ninth grade teacher who thought I had a gift for acting, my Upward Bound teacher who just loved me.”
“And each of those things just carried me, carried me to a life that was more than dysfunction and darkness and trauma,” she said. “It was less about making great grades, as it was about just love, and not to be all kumbaya, but love is what carries us.”
Malloy asked Davis about how she balances business and art. This opened Davis up to a conversation about what it means to be an artist. “The ‘show business’ part is about money. It’s absolutely antithetical to own art,” she said.
Audrey Watson, a senior English major, shared their appreciation for Davis’s thoughts on the line between the arts and money. “On a personal level, as an artist, someone who does create work for other people and less so for myself, it’s very refreshing to hear her talk about how art is not about the business side of things.”
Watson continued, “I feel like everything she was saying was reflective and emulated what she had to say about how art is really a method or mode of connecting and communicating and creating visibility for people that maybe don’t feel like they have that in their lives.”
As Davis’s discussion ended, Malloy introduced some pre-recorded videos of student questions. Camryn Dancy, a junior media studies student, asked “How do you stay grounded?”
Davis said, “I stay grounded because there is joy in my life. My husband, my daughter, my house, my mom. They really bring me joy. My work does too, but it’s different you know? It’s like Denzel [Washington] says, ‘There’s no U-Haul in the back of a hearse.’”
Law student Destiny Ramos asked what advice Davis could share with USF students.
“My advice is the advice I’d love to have.[…] The two things you can be armed with that can make your life, is understanding that you are the love of your life, and to surround yourself with people who love you, who will protect your flame. When I say the flame, I mean the flame of your creativity, your greatness,” Davis said.
Editor-in-Chief: Jordan Premmer, Chief Copy Editor: Sophia McCrackin, Managing Editor: Jordan DelFiugo, News Editor: Phebe Bridges, Sports Editor: John Lindroos
