Viola Davis Recalls Her Journey to Acting in Powerful Cecil B. DeMille Globes Speech: 'I Just Wanted to Be Somebody'

EGOT winner Viola Davis has another trophy to add to her collection, and this one is dedicated to her younger self.

The actress, 59, gave an emotional speech at the Golden Gala on Jan. 3 when she accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award ahead of the 2025 Golden Globes, where she explored the origins of her desire to be an artist and to use the one thing she had inside her as a child: ” spell”.

“I think I decided to be an actor because acting was just a cosmic carrot for a much bigger journey. A journey of finding myself, finding a sense of belonging, finding my worth,” she said. “I was born into a life that just didn’t make sense. I didn’t fit in. I was born in extreme poverty. I was naughty. I was imaginative. I was riotous. I was poor to go to a house with alcoholism and infested with rats everywhere. Toilets never they didn’t work.”

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“My life just didn’t make sense. And on top of that, all anyone said was that I wasn’t pretty. By the way, what the hell is pretty? I wasn’t pretty. I just wanted to be somebody.”

After thinking about what she didn’t have growing up, How to get away with murder the alum said that the “magic” in her kept her going.

“And you know what my magic was? That I could teleport. That I could withdraw from this worthless world and sometimes break free of it,” she said.

Viola Davis and Julius Tennon at the 82nd Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton.

Amy Sussman/Getty

“I was curious and that’s how I started my journey. And I had enough curiosity to know not only that I could do magic and have these people, but what could they give me? What could I find? And all these lives that could somehow spill those nuggets of gold and give me meaning in my life.”

In the beginning, the actress, who shares daughter Genesis, 14, with her husband, actor Julius Tennon, 71, “took on a lot of jobs for money… Because sometimes for a dark-skinned black woman with a broad nose and big lips, that’s all there is? money .”

She asserted that she does not “believe that poverty is really the answer to craft,” nor is there “any nobility in poverty,” but instead said, “I think every job I’ve gotten, even if it’s because it was an opportunity to go in there and get it, right? And then these brave bits would come down on me, and I’d get Mrs. Millers and Annalize Keatings and Aibileen Clarks and Amanda Wallers and I’d be like, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to be the next Meryl Streep.’ And then nothing.”

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Each of the characters she played — even if it was someone “nobody cared about” — “gave me some level of response,” she continued, on her journey to find the “elixir” she was searching for.

“What you have to understand is you, your story, you as you are, you are valuable. I had my ruby ​​slippers. They say the only two people you owe anything to are your 6-year-old self and your 80-year-old self and 6-year-old Viola, sometimes I have to rely on them to give me perspective even for this moment, otherwise it’s too big for me to imagine just from bedwetting and poverty and despair and injustice to this, and little Viola whines.”

“And here’s the thing, it’s powerful,” Davis concluded her speech. “So little Viola squeals. Now she stands behind me and pulls on my dress, and she wears the same red rubber boots that she used to wear in the rain and in the sun because they made her beautiful. She squeals and says one thing. She says, ‘Let them hear this.’ And what he whispers is: ‘I told you I was a magician’.”

Viola Davis at the 82nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton on January 5, 2025 in Beverly Hills, California.

Amy Sussman/Gett

Davis has earned seven Golden Globe nominations in film and television. She won her first Golden Globe Award in 2017 for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture, for her portrayal of Rose Lee Maxson in Fences. She was nominated for her work in films King of women in 2023, Oh Rainey’s Black Bottom in 2021, Help in 2012, Doubt in 2009; and for her work in the ABC drama How to get away with murder in 2015 and 2016.

“Viola Davis is a luminary whose profound talent has continually changed the lens through which we view and understand film,” Helen Hoehne, president of the Golden Globes, said in an October statement announcing Davis as the winner.

“Awarding her the 2025 Cecil B. DeMille Award is not only an honor, but also a reflection of our admiration for her unrelenting dedication to her craft and her monumental impact on the industry. Viola’s courage in portraying complex, powerful characters has broken down barriers and paved new paths, making her an emblem of excellence and the ideal winner of this prestigious award.”

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Davis earned EGOT status by winning Emmys, Grammys, Oscars and multiple Tony Awards. She won a Tony and an Oscar for her work in Fences on stage and screen. She also won a Tony for Best Actress in a Play for King Hedley II.

The actress won an Emmy Award for her work in How to get away with murder. In 2023, she won a Grammy for Best Audiobook Narration for her memoir Finding me.

According to the Golden Globes, the award — named after famed director Cecil B. DeMille — was first established in 1952. Since then, the honor has been bestowed 69 times. Past recipients include Walt Disney, Sidney Poitier, Barbra Streisand and Oprah Winfrey.

Before Davis, the most recent winner was Eddie Murphy, who took home the award in 2023. The Golden Globes did not award Cecil B. DeMille at last year’s show.

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Watch PEOPLE’s full coverage of the 82nd Annual Golden Globe Awards, which aired live from the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles on CBS and Paramount+.

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