This image is as inspiring as Viola Davis’ Oscar-winning speech.
The actress only has a kindergarten photo to show of her childhood because her family was too poor to own a camera, People noted in its cover preview on Wednesday.
And like the amazing characters Davis has portrayed, the picture tells a story.
“I have this expression on my face — it’s not a smile, it’s not a frown,” Davis told the magazine. “I swear to you, that’s the girl who wakes up in the morning and who looks around her house and her life saying, ‘I cannot believe how God has blessed me.’”
Davis’ indomitable spirit shined through in her speech at the Oscars Sunday after she won Best Supporting Actress for playing the put-upon wife Rose in “Fences.”
“I became an artist, and thank God I did, because we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life,” the 51-year-old performer said after receiving her first Academy Award following two previous nominations.
At a 2014 Power In Women event, Davis described the “abject poverty” in which she grew up.
“I have stolen for food. I have jumped in huge garbage bins with maggots for food,” she said. “I have befriended people in the neighborhood, who I knew had mothers who cooked three meals a day for food, and I sacrificed a childhood for food and grew up in immense shame.”
That kid in the photo did pretty damn well for herself.
