Viola Davis stands up for ‘regular’ women: ‘I didn’t want to be the Vogue woman’

Viola Davis

Although she’s an award winning actress with dozens of movies under her belt, 49-year-old Viola Davis’ star role in ABC’s “How To Get Away With Murder” was the gig that propelled her career into mainstream limelight. Her controversial character, Annalise Keating, was introduced to primetime television last fall. She and her cast mates quickly picked up a second season and ended off ranking No. 2 among dramas of the season.

Season 2 of the show is scheduled to premiere this fall, and Davis is already campaigning for it. She covers Emmy Comedy-Drama issue of The Wrap Magazine, with whom she dishes on her transition from movies to suspenseful TV, her flawed, but relatable character Annalise and the many reasons playing the role was such a bold statement against industry norms. Check out these experts from the interview.

Why Annalise is more relatable then most lead characters:

To feel like Annalise is familiar. Taking her wig off, me not being a Size 2, me being obviously 49. I always say I hold it up for the regular people out there. There’s still something very human in each episode, and when I say “human,” I mean flawed; things that we probably do in private that we don’t want anyone else to see. But when we see it in actors and when we see it onscreen, it makes us feel less alone. And I felt like which each episode I tried to at least achieve that in the midst of this kind of pop fiction. And I think that’s why people root for her.

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