Yahoo News Viola Davis reveals a star once told her she has no swagger: 'I thought it was a compliment'
The Woman King star Viola Davis has commanded millions in global ticket sales, an Oscar, and a lead role at the center of one of this year's buzziest awards season titles, but she says an unnamed celebrity once told her she has no swagger.
"I had one person — celebrity — who said this to me once, he said that, when I walk into the room, 'I don't remember you,' that I don't walk in with any swagger or authority," Davis tells PEOPLE and EW ahead of Woman King's 2022 TIFF premiere. "I thought it was a compliment, because I don't know what that means. I don't think it services an artist to see the other actors in a piece as anything other than a peer, and that's how I see it. I don't care if they just started acting or are five years old, I see them as a peer, I learn just as much form them as they can learn from me.... it's a partnership, through and through."
Ilze Kitshoff/TriStar Pictures Viola Davis wages war against European colonialism in 'The Woman King.'
Davis definitely pumped herself up for director Gina Prince-Bythewood's The Woman King, however, both physically and mentally. In the film, she portrays the leader of an all-female warrior collective in 19th-century Africa, which required the ensemble cast — also including John Boyega, Lashana Lynch, Thuso Mbedu, and Sheila Atim — to undergo intense training.
"We did the weight lifting and blasted the music right on our driveway," Davis recalls with a laugh. "There is something to be said about breaking that barrier of what you feel like you can't do. That gives you a swagger. You begin to feel yourself, and you begin to really appreciate when your body is working for you as a woman, the strength of it. There are times when I'm now walking in the grocery store I walk in the parking lot of Vons, like, yeah, I'm here. It gives you a huge swagger."
Lynch, who previously starred in the 2021 James Bond film No Time to Die, said that the preparation she did for Prince-Bythewood's historical epic challenged her unlike anything she'd done before.
"I thought I'd be able to compare it, but there's nothing that compares you for this level for training," she explains. "I didn't get to do all my stunts in that, and [here] you have a director that's like, 'You'll do your own stunts!'"
Prince-Bythewood, perhaps best known for directing Love & Basketball and The Old Guard, says that The Woman King is a fitting addition to her filmography, as it joins her Hollywood legacy of creating films about powerful, complex women.
"For me, in the body of work, it's ultimately about reframing what it means to be female and feminine," she says. "I hate the narrative that women aren't strong and there's something wrong with muscles or being athletic. I wanted to celebrated the athleticism, the skill, strength, swagger, I really put that up on screen for people to be inspired by it."
The Woman King world-premieres Friday at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, before opening in theaters on Sept. 16. Watch PEOPLE and EW's interview with the cast and crew above.
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