Viola Davis’ Bold Risk to Take Off Her Wig and MakeUp

When it comes to acting, Viola Davis is an absolute powerhouse. The How to Get Away with Murder star recently received a BAFTA Award nomination for her performance as Nanisca in The Woman King.

In a How to Get Away with Murder-themed For Your Consideration panel from 2015, Davis said that her role as Annalise Keating was unlike any role she’d ever been offered. “When someone is described as sexual and mysterious and complicated and messy, you don’t think of me. I thought it was a really great opportunity to do something different, to transform into a character that people weren’t used to seeing me in.”

Speaking about the captivating closing scene in which Annalise removes her wig, eyelashes and wipes away her makeup–essentially transforming her character from powerhouse defense attorney-law professor into a woman with vulnerabilities that everyone can relate to–Viola explained that this revelatory scene was her own idea. Indeed, she explained it was the only way she agreed to play the part of Annalise.

“There was something I didn’t buy about Annalise in private. It felt like who she was in private had to be diametrically opposed to who she was in public,” she said. “And so in order to do that, I felt like I had to physically take the wig off. I mean, I have no eyebrows. I have eyelashes that I put on, and there was something extremely vulnerable about that act–and I know it seems like a very simple act at the end of the day–but for me, that simple act really surmounted to something very powerful in the end, because what it was was someone being very, very private in public, which is absolutely the cornerstone of what we do as artists. I didn’t just want to walk in heels like I was a supermodel. Who does that? That was how that scene came about. I didn’t want to wake up in bed thinking that this is how I really look. I wanted to woman up, and I wanted to actor up, too.”

The director of the episode asked Viola, “Now do we want to take off all the makeup?” Davis made clear her position, “You know what? I want to take it off.”

Intrigued by the notion of exposing the “part of being a woman that people kind of throw in the trash heap when you see them on TV,” Viola shared with Nightline, “It’s very empowering–and for me, intensely interesting.”

Here’s one of those bold risks that actors often talk about in their determination to create layered, compelling characters. It turns out that less can really be more.

Viola has decided to wear her natural hair in her personal life as well for similarly empowering reasons.

“I took off my wig because I wanted to step into who I was,” she said. “And I felt like…every time I put on a wig that I was apologizing for who I was, being a dark-skinned woman, very curly hair, I felt like I was hiding it…and I felt like I didn’t want to do that anymore…and I stepped into who I was.”

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