Viola Davis opens up on the lack of freedom Black women are given on screen

American actor Viola Davis wore her heart on her sleeve about the challenges she faced initially as a Black acting student at Julliard.

In an interview with The Telegraph, the Oscar winner, 55, opened up about her latest film, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which earned her a Golden Globes nomination as well this year.

Looking back at time when she watched the theater’s onstage adaption of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

"It was like I was watching a famous singer that I loved in private, even though I didn't even know who Ma Rainey was at all,” she said.

Davis said that during her time at Julliard, she never performed any plays by August Wilson, who is known for his cycle of 10 shows encircling African American community of the 20th century.

She went on to reveal that the reason for this was because the few Black students in her graduating class weren’t cast for shows enough.

"I can't say that I'm not appreciative of my training there, but I did not find a sense of belonging. It was a place that taught classical, Eurocentric theatre as if it was the Bible — and for me, as a chocolate, kinky-haired girl, there was no way in," she said.

"To perform in Shakespeare, or George Bernard Shaw, or Eugene O'Neill, I felt like what was required of me was to make any hint of my Blackness disappear, that it would somehow be a good thing if the audience could forget I was Black,” she went on to say.

"There is still a sense that a woman has to look a certain way and be a certain age in order to be sexual on screen. And if those rules are broken, they're broken for white actresses only. And they're wonderful white actresses — Meryl Streep in 'Hope Springs,' or Diane Keaton in 'Something's Gotta Give.' But I don't feel like that same freedom has been extended to black women, especially dark-skinned black women. I simply don't see it," she continued.