Article taken from Entertainment Weekly.
Viola Davis grew up a long way from Hollywood, in Central Falls, Rhode Island, and she was born even further away from the world of showbiz on a former plantation in South Carolina.
In a sit-down with Jess Cagle, editorial director of PEOPLE andEntertainment Weekly, Davis recounted her short time living on her grandmothers farm, which was on Singleton Plantation in St. Matthews, South Carolina.
I wasnt on it long, because I was the fifth child, and so we moved soon after I was born, she said during the latest episode of The Jess Cagle Interview. I mean, I went back to visit briefly but still not aware of the history. I think I read one slave narrative of someone who was on that plantation which was horrific. 160 acres of land, and my grandfather was a sharecropper. Most of my uncles and cousins, theyre farmers. Thats the choice that they had. My grandmothers house was a one room shack. I have a picture of it on my phone because I think its a beautiful picture.
Davis also recalled her relatives bare-bones living conditions and how they found joy in the simple things.
[There was] no running water. No bathroom. Its just an outhouse, she said. But my mom says that the day I was born, all of my aunts and uncles were in the house, she said, everyone was drinking and laughing, and having fun. She said she ate a sardine, mustard, onion, tomato sandwich after I was born.
I love that story, Davis continued. Its a great story to me. Its a great story of celebration in the midst of what you would feel is a decimated environment, but you could see the joy and the life that can come out of that, because its not always about things, you know.