Viola Davis Tribute at SBIFF

Reviewed by Rosanna Lapinski.  Viewed at Arlington Theater.

Outstanding Performer of the Year Award

On Friday night, January 27, Viola Davis received the Outstanding Performer of the Year Award at the 27^th Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Ms. Davis walked the red carpet with her husband, actor Julius Tennon.

Ms. Davis was here to receive the award for her role as Abilene Clark in the DreamWorks’ Production, The Help. On Sunday, Ms. Davis received the Screen Actors Guild Award as best actress for 2011. Davis was given the festival’s Performer of the Year award, which was presented by Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of the civil rights activist, Medgar Evers, who was shot and killed in Mississippi in 1963 in what later became one of the most significant events of the era.

Prompted by questions from Anne Thompson, Ms. Davis provided highlights of her 23-year career onstage and in the movies. Ms. Davis’ earlier films include Traffic (2000), Antwone Fisher (2002), and Solaris (2002). Ms. Davis received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the film adaptation of John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt (2008). Until now, her career high was her stage role in Fences, for which she received the Tony for best leading actress.

In response to interviewer Thompson’s queries into Ms. Davis’ inspiration to become an actress, Ms. Davis described the “abject poverty” of her childhood years. At the age of five years old, upon meeting her nine-years old sister for the first time, her sister told Viola the only way to escape their lives of poverty was to have “a big dream.” “So I became a theater geek in high school. I took acting lessons and had grandiose ideas,” Ms. Davis said, and “at fourteen years old, [she] began taking private acting lessons.”

When asked about her training as an actor, Ms. Davis related her schooling at Juilliard. “I had to choose between Yale, Julliard and NYU. It was eenie, meenie, miny, moe, and I chose Julliard.” Ms. Davis said the Julliard School “was sheer hell, like a bad-tasting medicine.”

Ms. Davis was asked to compare her roles onstage to the roles she has gotten on screen. “Davis replied: “I haven’t had the kind of roles onscreen I had onstage. Often I found I had to make filet mignon out of fried chicken.”

Davis, 46, is competing for the best lead actress Oscar at the Academy Awards on February 26; she is up against her screen idol, Meryl Streep. Commenting on the lack of good roles for black women in film, Davis said, “If we all waited for a role like Sophie’s Choice to come our way, we’d be waiting for a very long time.”