It’s far from Viola Davis’ first time becoming a meme.
Yet, the EGOT winner can’t help chuckling at the exuberant way she announced “Sinners” star Michael B. Jordan as best actor winner at last weekend’s Actor Awards — and how the clip instantly went viral.
“Me and my husband [actor and producer Julius Tennon] have been laughing for two days,” Davis says.
But her choice of words when opening the envelope — “You are shining, Harold Loomis. Shining like new money” — was not accidental. To be fair, Davis only got through the first part of the quote; she drowned out the second half by screeching. (“I’m a screamer, even at soccer games,” she says. “I’m the parent running up and down the field.”)
The line comes from “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” August Wilson’s 1984 play. It’s her favorite from his “American Century Cycle,” and she made her stage debut — and secured her Actors’ Equity card — in a 1988 production of it.
“That line is constantly playing out in my mind,” Davis says, “because what it encapsulates is someone stepping into their purpose. It gives me goose bumps. And that’s how I felt about Michael B Jordan.”
Viola Davis presents onstage at the 32nd annual Actor Awards.
Michael Buckner/Variety
And the connection runs deeper. Jordan’s “Sinners” co-star Delroy Lindo originated the role of Harold — a man who is haunted by his enslaved past, but frees himself of that specter by the play’s end. Davis dreamed that if she got to present Lindo with an award this season, she’d quote the line to him. Instead, she found herself opening the envelope for best actor and saw his co-star’s name. And with that line, “You’re shining like new money,” Davis acknowledged Jordan stepping into his power.
“Michael B Jordan is an incredible human and an incredible leader,” she says. “It’s extremely exciting what he’s going to become. Now he’s getting into directing. and he is going to bring African American filmmaking into a beautiful place.”
It’s perhaps kismet that the moment comes as Davis is making her own literary dreams come true.
“When I was 9, I said, ‘I’m going to be a writer,’ and I wanted to be a crime writer,” she recalls. The young Davis saw writing as an escape from the turbulent aspects of her childhood. “It was a chance to live in another world,” she says. “And people responded to my writing, especially my fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Cody. Whenever someone notices you’re really good at something, it becomes a portal.”
Davis is already a New York Times bestselling author — and completed the coveted EGOT (winning an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony award) — with her 2022 memoir “Finding Me.” But “Judge Stone,” on stands now, marks her first foray into fiction.
“That’s just 30% of who I am in that book. There’s a lot of things you don’t remember, a lot of things you can’t fit in, a lot of things that you haven’t processed yet and a lot of things you don’t want to share,” Davis says of memoir writing. “But with ‘Judge Stone,’ it’s like running in a field of cherry blossoms and daisies and just letting your imagination rip and roar.”
The courtroom thriller, which Davis co-wrote with James Patterson, centers on a small-town Alabama judge who is adjudicating the controversial trial over a 13-year-old girl’s abortion, and the doctor brought up on murder charges.
“The foundation of it made for a great thriller, but it wasn’t as character-driven. That’s when I felt like my gifts could be useful,” Davis says. “I wanted it to be grounded in some level of truth as much as I can muster.”
The book has shades of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” in that the nuances of the story — including that Alabama has the strictest anti-abortion laws in the U.S. and the young girl is a sexual assault survivor — invite readers to consider deeper questions. “I don’t think it’s a book that picks sides. It’s not about that,” she explains. “The abortion is a plot device for a larger purpose, because I don’t think it’s a book that picks sides. There are certain plot devices that can be a great catalyst to story and character.”
It’s the difference between asking a roomful of people what shampoo they love versus asking them what they wanted to be when they were five years old. “That’s a question that can bring out some great storytelling; it could probably even agitate some great emotions,” Davis says. “So, this is sort of an epic device that brings out emotions in the same way that ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ did.”
Now that Davis has crossed “become a crime author” off her list of goals, she aspires to influence the next generation through teaching. “That’s the best place that I can exercise my gift,” she says, “because when I think of how I was greatly influenced — good and bad — it’s been with my teachers. I would love to teach, and in acting, because acting has brought me a lot of healing.”
Read on as Davis shares more about the novel, including how she found herself collaborating with Patterson and how her tenure on “How to Get Away With Murder” impacted the plot.
Had “thriller writer” always been a dream of yours? Or at what point did this chapter of your career come into being?
When I was nine. I said, “I’m going to be a writer.” It sort of was mixing with the acting, but the acting was more of a far-fetched dream, whereas writing was more immediate for me, because I could put pen to paper anytime I wanted to, and I would. Of course, everything I wrote was dystopian and [had] murder and people dying and everything was always dramatic, but I always felt like I had control over the pen.
So, you just took a little detour to become an EGOT-winning performer on your way to getting here.
Well, the EGOT was never intentional. That’s a blessing that just sort of rained down on me.
How did you come up with the idea for “Judge Stone”?
Well, really, that’s on James Patterson. My agent, Ann Blanchard, called me out of the blue and said, “Would you like to collaborate with James Patterson on a book?” And I thought, “Yikes!” See, when I was nine, that would have been like, “Whoa!” But at 60, I’m like, “What can I add to James Patterson?” and then she said, “Well, I’m going to have him call you.”
Then he called me, and I said, “What can I help you with? I mean, how could I even be useful in this collaboration?” He said, “Well, Viola is going to be the story of a 13-year-old girl who gets pregnant, has an abortion, and the doctor gets charged with murder, because Alabama has the strictest abortion laws.” I thought to myself, “OK, I could do this.” I felt like the foundation made for a great thriller, but it wasn’t as plot-driven as character-driven, and that’s when I felt like my gifts could be useful.
What were some of those things that were important to build into the character of Judge Mary Stone?
Now we also know that truth is stranger than fiction, right? I can tell you the most fantastical story that could be true, but the goal is always the truth. Who is Judge Stone? What does she live for? What could possibly get in the way of this case and scramble it up? What would be realistic? What would the obstacles be? When she goes to bed, does she put a scarf on her head? What would happen if she really riled people up in the state of Alabama? Who could possibly come up against her, and what would they take from her? The land. Anything I could think of that was grounded in reality.
What could possibly connect her to Nova? I was that overly developed, 13-year-old girl. I was dark-skinned. I was awkward. I was adultified. What would that connection be between Judge Stone and Nova? Maybe Judge Stone saw herself in Nova. But then what does that agitate? Is it something in her past that is somehow a connective tissue that can play out throughout the story? I was looking for all of those things. And then, of course, I have James Patterson, who is the greatest human on Earth. He was the conductor, so I certainly didn’t want to interfere with the structure that he already had.
Tell me more about your connection to Nova.
Ninety-eight percent of the time, I don’t recognize the kids on screen. Even if they are troublemakers, they’re genius troublemakers who somehow figured out a way to rewire an entire city and blow up a stadium. I wanted to meet her where she was as much as I could; I wanted to honor her, a girl who was sexually violated, and not sensationalize it.
What people don’t understand when it comes to sexual violation is that oftentimes it catapults you into nothingness, and it’s that nothingness that I think that a lot of times people don’t see as dramatic. But I think, in terms of a narrative, it’s extremely powerful, and it also compels the story forward because it gives it an emotional center. Nova gives it an emotional center, like in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” I’m not saying we’re Harper Lee. I love Harper Lee; I think I’ve read “To Kill a Mockingbird” easily two to three dozen times. And what’s so predominant is the characters are no bigger than the story. And because they’re just as big as the plot, it makes you invested in the story in a different way, which is what Mr. Patterson and I wanted to achieve.
Because “To Kill a Mockingbird” has been so enduring and has been adapted for TV and movies, when this book gets optioned, which medium do you think would better serve the story?
Well, I think it would be better served in a limited series. It’d give you more time in Union Springs. It gives you time with all the characters. It gives it space, and it’s accessible to everybody. I grew up in a time when we had mini-series like “Roots” and “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” where everybody tuned in. It didn’t matter the race, the economic status, everybody was tuned into those television shows; some of them getting 100 to 150 million viewers.
How did your time on “How to Get Away with Murder” impact the story? Did it inform anything about the way you wanted to craft those courtroom scenes?
In the courtroom scenes, that’s when I felt there was a chance to go overboard with being dramatic. You can make any choice in the world when you’re writing fiction, just like you can make any choice as an actor, but not every choice is the best choice. I spent time in courtrooms when I was younger, in my 20s, doing research, and the courtroom is not always very dramatic at all. Because you’re arguing the law. But for the purpose of reading and creating a page turner, you have to be bold and dramatic, and that’s what we got from “How to Get Away With Murder,” which I understand was unrealistic. We were really pushing the envelope with realism.
As you step into this new chapter and continue your author’s journey, what inspires you? What do you want to do next?
If I were to be extremely honest, and I was going to sort of separate myself from the world and the world’s expectations and the EGOT and everything that I’ve accomplished, the other thing that is attractive to me is being a teacher.
I would like to get in there with these young people, because I think that we criticize a lot of the influences out there, like social media, and we don’t know how much a lot of us are the bad influence. We talk about connection, but then we don’t connect. We talk about influencing young people, and most of the time, we talk about grades and getting into Ivy League schools and being in the 1% instead of meeting them where they are.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
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