Viola Davis has responded to critics of her portrayal of Michelle Obama in Showtime’s The First Lady, admitting that “not everything will be a meritorious performance.”
In an interview with BBC News to promote her new memoir, Finding Me, the Oscar, Tony and Emmy winner opened up about her role as a former first lady, giving audiences and critics barbs for Davis’ attitude Obama’s conjured facial expressions and pursed lips.
Davis said it’s “incredibly hurtful when people say negative things about your work.”
“What’s next with the pain, the failure?” she said. “But you have to. Not everything will be a prize-worthy achievement.”
Davis also told the BBC: “Critics have absolutely no purpose. And I don’t mean that in a bad way.
“They always feel like they’re telling you something you don’t know,” she continued. “Somehow you live a life where you’re surrounded by people who lie to you and ‘I’m going to be the person who leans over and tells you the truth,’ so it gives them the opportunity to be cruel to you.” But ultimately I feel it’s my job as a leader to make bold decisions. Win or fail, that is my duty.”
Davis, it can be argued, had the toughest job of the three leads in the Susanne Bier-directed series, given that Michelle Pfeiffer and Gillian Anderson both portrayed White House matriarchs decades ago. Pfeiffer played Betty Ford, who served as First Lady from 1974 to 1977 and died in 2005, and Anderson as Eleanor Roosevelt, who was First Lady from 1933 to 1945 and died in 1962.
Davis, who said she had no personal contact with Obama, remarked that it’s “almost possible” to play a globally recognized contemporary character like Obama: “You either do too much or you don’t do enough,” she said.
The actress won the 2017 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Denzel Washington’s Fences and has been nominated for roles in Doubt, The Help and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Davis is also a two-time Tony winner for King Hedley II and Fences (the play Washington’s film was based on). In 2015, she won an Emmy for How to Get Away With Murder.
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