Viola Davis

Viola Davis is the author and main character of this memoir. Today, she is a highly successful actor in Hollywood, Oscar- and Emmy-nominated for several movies and television series. She was born in Rhode Island and grew up impoverished, absorbing the trauma of watching her father abuse her mother. Close bonds with her sisters allowed her to endure and inspired her to make a life that was more than what she had experienced as a child. When she realized she wanted to act, she pursued her path through a series of challenging training experiences, which often brought out the trauma she had experienced through intense poverty and racial marginalization. A combination of talent, hard work, and good fortune made it possible for her to build a successful career, but she was long held back by racist casting conventions that made it difficult for her to get lead roles. However, she began to overcome those boundaries, with the help of fellow Black artists in theater and in Hollywood, and continued to grow her skill as an actor.

MaMama (Mae)

MaMama is Viola Davis’s mother. She is clever, secretive, and deeply loving. A central trauma of Viola’s life was watching the many years of brutal abuse that her mother endured from her father. The nature of MaMama’s stories about her life is such that Viola is surprised when her mother tells a full story and there is nothing traumatic or horrifying about it.

MaDaddy (Dan)

MaDaddy was Viola Davis’s father. He was an alcoholic and was profoundly abusive to Viola’s mother for many years. Young Viola had a great deal of difficulty understanding her father. She tried to defend her mother against him, sometimes with success. Resentment and distance built between them. However, the older Viola repaired her relationship with them and learned to appreciate him—but only after he stopped being abusive. Being a grandfather turned MaDaddy into a gentle person. Instead of beating his wife, he began to be tender to her and care for her as she grew weaker with age. MaDaddy died first, however, with Viola at his bedside.

Dianne

Dianne is Viola Davis’s older sister. She is hardworking, determined, and caring. It was Dianne’s insistence that she make something more of her life that inspired Viola to seek out acting and a future beyond the world she grew up in. Dianne was a strong role model for Viola in her intense commitment to academic achievement and personal success. However, Dianne does not play much of a role later in the story. She seems to have put her family behind her in a way that Viola decided not to, even when they made life more difficult for her as she pursued her career.

Danielle

Danielle is Viola Davis’s younger sister. Viola is significantly older and was protective of Danielle from the beginning. Danielle experienced sexual abuse as a child that had a deeply traumatic impact. She worried her family by repeatedly becoming a teen mother, to children that her parents ended up taking in. The struggles that Danielle has gone through are a source of grief to Viola, who loves her deeply.

Julius

Julius is Viola Davis’s husband. They met on a film set. While she was hesitant about him at first due to past bad experiences with men, he was gentle and respectful, and she grew to trust him. She loves him for how caring and tender he is. She writes at length about how special he is and how his love provided the support she needed for her career to truly bloom. They wanted a child but, due to Viola’s health situation, were not able to have a biological one. Instead, they adopted a daughter, whom they named Genesis.