--- title: Viola Davis on Hollywood Roles for Black Women description: Viola Davis, who is garnering Oscar buzz for her role in Fences, wants Hollywood to create more complex roles for black women. canonical: https://time.com/4609357/viola-davis-hollywood-black-women/ author: Samantha Cooney article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-12-21T18:35:47.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T09:04:12.201Z og:title: Viola Davis Is Tired of Hollywood Treating Black Women Like Sidekicks og:description: And she wants to change it og:url: https://time.com/4609357/viola-davis-hollywood-black-women/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5c1b6a6d767152ce/6988b3ad0a4a2290e29cc698/viola-davis-black-women-hollywood.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3600 og:image:height: 2025 og:image:alt: "Fences" New York Screening - Arrivals og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Viola Davis Is Tired of Hollywood Treating Black Women Like Sidekicks twitter:description: And she wants to change it twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5c1b6a6d767152ce/6988b3ad0a4a2290e29cc698/viola-davis-black-women-hollywood.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Viola Davis Is Tired of Hollywood Treating Black Women Like Sidekicks > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays to 40,000 subscribers as of August 2026. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters.  by [Samantha Cooney](https://time.com/author/samantha-cooney/)  ## Samantha Cooney Dec 21, 2016 6:35 PM UTC  Viola Davis attends the "Fences" New York Screening at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center on December 19, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images) Viola Davis attends the "Fences" New York Screening at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center on December 19, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images)Mike Coppola—Getty Images  by [Samantha Cooney](https://time.com/author/samantha-cooney/)  ## Samantha Cooney Dec 21, 2016 6:35 PM UTC Viola Davis wants to change the way black women are portrayed in films and television. Davis, who’s garnering [Oscar buzz for her role in _Fences_](http://time.com/4586185/oscar-awards-guide/?iid=sr-link2), opened up to the Daily Beast about her frustration with how Hollywood too frequently casts black actors in insignificant, supporting roles. “I’m trying to change the black woman coming in at the ninth hour to give a sassy line and walk out, to be the best friend and just be the sounding board giving information,” Davis told the Daily Beast. “I want to know her. I want to sit with her, and I want to sit with her pathology.” The actress has notably played strong characters throughout her career, including lawyer Annalise Keating on _How to Get Away With Murder_, and says that her character in _Fences_ — Rose, a matriarch of a black family in 1950s Pittsburgh — fits that bill. **_Read More_**: [_Viola Davis: ‘People of Color Are Part of the Human Experience, Too’_](http://motto.time.com/4239239/viola-davis-diversity-in-hollywood-oscars/) “Rose is a Fully. Realized. Woman,” she said. “She is complete in her journey. She’s complicated. She is not just a walking social statement. She is not just someone there to give you comfort and love and be maternal, or to sass, or to just be someone’s best friend. She is strong, vulnerable, joyful, and… messy.” While accepting an award for her role in _Fences_ at the Critics’ Choice Awards earlier this month, Davis [delivered a well-received speech](http://motto.time.com/4597797/viola-davis-critics-choice-speech/) about the importance of self-acceptance. And she hopes that the industry follows suit and creates more authentic — and complicated — roles for women of color. “I’m going to believe that’s changing because I think that women and I think people of color, what they’re doing is they’re now getting it. They’re getting the fact that the waiting for the change is not the ticket. The ticket is in creating the change,” she said. “It’s in being the instrument of the change.” Read Davis’ full interview with the Daily Beast [here. ](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/21/how-viola-davis-found-the-courage-to-be-herself-i-ve-always-had-to-take-the-road-less-chosen.html) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4609357/viola-davis-hollywood-black-women/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4609357/viola-davis-hollywood-black-women/"},"headline":"Viola Davis Is Tired of Hollywood Treating Black Women Like Sidekicks","datePublished":"2016-12-21T18:35:47.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T09:04:12.201Z","description":"And she wants to change it","url":"https://time.com/4609357/viola-davis-hollywood-black-women/","keywords":["motto"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5c1b6a6d767152ce/6988b3ad0a4a2290e29cc698/viola-davis-black-women-hollywood.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Samantha Cooney","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/samantha-cooney/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5c1b6a6d767152ce/6988b3ad0a4a2290e29cc698/viola-davis-black-women-hollywood.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"\"Fences\" New York Screening - Arrivals","caption":"\"Fences\" New York Screening - Arrivals","creditText":"Mike Coppola—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/motto/","name":"motto"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4609357/viola-davis-hollywood-black-women/","name":"Viola Davis Is Tired of Hollywood Treating Black Women Like Sidekicks"}}]}] ```