Viola Davis to Hollywood: ‘Pay me what I’m worth’
The Academy Award-winning actress wants her just due
On Tuesday night, Viola Davis opened up to journalist Tina Brown during the Women in the World Salon event in Los Angeles and admitted that despite the praise her career has received, she doesn't feel she has the opportunities or pay that she should.
On Tuesday night, Viola Davis opened up to journalist Tina Brown during the Women in the World Salon event in Los Angeles and admitted that despite the praise her career has received, she doesn’t feel she has the opportunities or pay that she should.
“I have a career that’s probably comparable to Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Sigourney Weaver,” she told Brown, according to People. “They all came out of Yale, they came out of Juilliard, they came out of NYU. They had the same path as me, and yet I am nowhere near them. Not as far as money, not as far as job opportunities, nowhere close to it.”
“People say, ‘You’re a black Meryl Streep … We love you. There is no one like you,” she opined. “OK, then if there’s no one like me, you think I’m that, you pay me what I’m worth.”
Davis said that the problem isn’t just with pay, but with opportunities. After all, it’s hard to get Meryl Streep-level pay if you’re not being offered Meryl Streep-level roles.
“As an artist, I want to build the most complicated human being, but what I get is the third girl from the left,” she said.
Viola Davis to women of color: stop settling for less
But now that Davis has enough of a successful career that she can pick and choose her roles, she said that she won’t take scraps anymore.
“It’s gotten to the point [where] I’m no longer doing that,” she said. “I’m not hustling for my worth. I’m worthy. When I came out of my mom’s womb, I came in worthy.”
She went on to tell women of color to do the same and demand to be treated with respect.
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“You’ll have a Shailene Woodley, who’s fabulous. And she may have had 37 magazine covers in one year. 37! And then you’ll have someone — a young actress of color who’s on her same level of talent and everything. And she may get four. And there is sense in our culture that you have to be happy with that,” she said.
“I always mention what Shonda Rhimes said when she got the Normal Lear Award at,,,,, the Producers Guild Awards about two or three years ago. She held it up and she said, ‘I accept this award because I believe I deserve it. Because when I walk in the room I ask for what I want and I expect to get it. And that’s why I believe I deserve this award. Because Norman Lear was a pioneer, and so am I.’ And that’s revolutionary as a woman, but it’s doubly revolutionary as a woman of color. ‘Cause we have been riding the caboose of the train — we really have. And it’s time enough for that.”
Davis is an Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning actress who currently stars on the hit show How to Get Away With Murder.
