Actors On Actors: Samuel L. Jackson & Viola Davis
Actors Viola Davis (The First Lady) and Samuel L. Jackson (The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey) sit down for an Actors on Actors segment. Together, they recount their experiences rising in the New York acting world, give advice for actors on their first projects, and discuss what it was like for Viola Davis to play Michelle Obama.
“My stomping grounds were in the ‘90s. And when I got my first play at The Public Theater, making $250 a week, I was like, ‘it’s a wrap, I’ve made it.’”
Samuel L. Jackson begins the interview by asking Viola Davis how she feels seeing herself on billboards. She claims that she doesn’t see that as herself. The ones currently displayed are Viola as Michelle Obama, but it isn’t Viola the person. She draws a clear line separating work life and personal life. Viola relates her current work to her time spent at Juilliard. She played her role with dedication and got paid for her services, but she never felt that the characters she played were ever her in the sense that the characters became a part of her.
“Notoriety is just an overflow of the work.”
Samuel goes back to Viola’s auditioning days for his next question. He asks her if there are people who auditioned alongside her in the past that are widely known now. Viola remarks that a lot of people she used to rehearse with are well-known in the entertainment industry. Aunjanue Ellis was one such person Viola had the pleasure of meeting and working with after coming straight out of Juilliard. She frequently went from job to job because she loved the time spent and the journey itself. Viola claims she enjoys actors who are not humble. Acting itself is a very humbling profession. She notes that when she contemplates her career, she realizes she did a lot of terrible plays and some good performances. The terrible plays were not intended to be that way because Viola claims she did the best she could with every one of her performances. She credits her casting on Seven Guitars with Lloyd Richards as the moment she got the attention of industry bigwigs.
“You can’t learn to act doing scenes. Having done something from the beginning to end has been very helpful in terms of this whole streaming service thing that happens now, and that allows you to take something that’s episodic and take the character the long roads.”
Moving to her role on The First Lady, Samuel asks Viola how she brings herself into becoming a living person, like Michelle Obama, and how she gets into that mindset. She states that it is difficult to play a real-life role because with an actual person, there is a shroud of protection and liability that proves to be a nightmare for actors. When actors enter that type of role, they must be armed with as much information as possible. Intimate details about a person can’t be reached under normal circumstances. It is up to the actors to fill in those details for an audience who feels an ownership of that character to the point where they don’t want said person’s image marred.
Viola believes that the most important thing an actor needs to have when playing a real-life role is courage. Courage to fill in the gaps of a person’s personality with whatever they imagine and be bold enough to inject it into their own choice and go with it. Actos must ask why the real-life person reacts a certain way. Viola also believes that the script limits the actor’s role. As an actor, it’s not their job to give an image of someone others want to see when playing a real-life role.
“I had that freedom to just go in there and make Ptolemy who I wanted Ptolemy to be. And I knew how uncomfortable the first episode would be.”
Samuel L. Jackson begins discussing his role as Ptolemy Grey in The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey. Creating the show as a six-part series gave Samuel the opportunity to expand on what he knew the character Ptolemy to be. Samuel realized portraying a character with dementia would be uncomfortable for him and his viewers, but he didn’t run away from the role. He didn’t want to make the image of Ptolemy easy for viewers and, instead, wanted viewers to know that things get better in the series. However, Samuel really wanted to hammer home the reality of what happens to people with dementia.
Samuel’s favorite moment, or moments, he played as Ptolemy was when he was able to be comfortable in losing himself in the role. Making people uncomfortable in your acting is satisfying for actors to know that they caused that reaction. Samuel believes an individual doesn’t need to be comfortable watching him all the time. Sometimes, he feels he needs to be controversial in his roles to create a more memorable impact on the viewer.
“When you’re given a series, you’re just given an opportunity to grow a character.”
Samuel moves the focus of the conversation back to Viola. He asks her what it feels like to bounce back and forth between the short form of movie life to doing television as a series. Viola feels that, sometimes, playing certain characters is a great opportunity to experiment. For her role as Annalise in How to Get Away with Murder, Viola was allowed to be a vessel for an unpredictably messy woman. Annalise was the first opportunity for her to play a role where she could boldly make choices that could surprise people. Playing Annalise allowed Viola, in her opinion, to make people see her as a woman. She reiterates that in terms of acting in movies and television, the transition and performance depend on the script.
“Life has to surprise you the same way that a character gets surprised by situations [that] pop up, that you have to solve a problem.”
The interview ends with Samuel jokingly asking Viola if Michelle Obama reached out to her to congratulate Viola’s portrayal of her in The First Lady. Viola states that she never had conversations with Michelle Obama about the show. Vila gives one last piece of advice to new actors. She claims that with every character, it's like you’re jumping off a cliff, and that’s where improv comes in to save you.