Viola Davis' performance as Aibileen Clark in 2011 drama The Help is well remembered and even earned her an award. However, in a recent interview with The New York Times, the actress revealed that during her career, she has passed on a few roles and regrets some of the decisions she's made in this regard.
"There have been one or two that I regretted for maybe a minute, and then I let it go," said Davis, who will now be seen in upcoming, drama 'Widows'. "As I'm growing older, I pass on roles because of my experience of knowing once the movie's out, I'm going to have to promote it. And I don't want to promote anything that I don't believe in."
"Almost a better question is, have I ever done roles that I've regretted? I have, and The Help is on that list," she said. "But not in terms of the experience and the people involved because they were all great. The friendships that I formed are ones that I'm going to have for the rest of my life. I had a great experience with these other actresses, who are extraordinary human beings. And I could not ask for a better collaborator than Tate Taylor."
She went to explain, "I just felt that at the end of the day that it wasn't the voices of the maids that were heard. I know Aibileen. I know Minny. They're my grandma. They're my mom," the 53-year-old Academy Award winner said. "And I know that if you do a movie where the whole premise is, I want to know what it feels like to work for white people and to bring up children in 1963, I want to hear how you really feel about it. I never heard that in the course of the movie."
In the past, Viola Davis explained the reason why she went ahead with the film, "I knew it was a best-selling book, and I knew it would change my career. That's what I knew," she recalled. "I thought it was an important story, but I had a lot of issues with The Help."
