Viola Davis reveals Juilliard trained her by putting a pencil in her mouth to check her tongue position
"No one wants to see a play or a movie and look at technical proficiency. You wanna be moved. You want a human experience, you wanna feel less alone. They don't get at that"
"They get at, literally, when you are rehearsing at Juilliard, they have a teacher with a pencil who follows you through the rehearsal and puts the pencil in your mouth to see where your tongue is and where it's positioned when you articulate"
"Or there's a person following you throughout rehearsal, holding your ribcage to see if you're breathing properly through your diaphragm"
"And so when it gets like that and you leave yourself and your soul behind, you're not an artist"
"And can I just say, on top of that, it's Eurocentric training. So when you're studying all of those classics, there's a clear idea of what all of those characters look like. And that's not me"
"So then what am I supposed to do with my Blackness? What am I supposed to do with my deep voice and my wide nose?"
Gotta brag on myself real quick. double fully license for mental health and substance abuse, working on my 2nd masters, will be 3rd degree. Founded and running a nonprofit for 6yrs all by age 31 🥹 God is so faithful
My father once told me the secret to a happy marriage.
“Stay out of the kitchen. Let her handle the holidays.”
I was 19. He was in his recliner.
My mother was cooking for 14 people.
She’d been up since 5 AM.
He’d been up since the football pregame.
I didn’t think anything of it.
That’s just how it was.
Fast forward 20 years.
I’m in the recliner.
My wife is in the kitchen.
She’s been up since 5 AM.
I’ve been up since the pregame.
My daughter walks by and I see her watching.
Not the TV.
Her mother.
Then me.
Then her mother again.
That’s when it hit me:
She’s taking notes.
My father taught me that holidays were for men to rest and women to work.
He didn’t say it.
He showed it.
Every Thanksgiving.
Every Christmas.
Every Easter.
The recliner passed from him to me like an inheritance I never asked for.
This morning I woke up at 4 AM.
Not for content.
For the turkey.
My wife found me in the kitchen at 6.
She didn’t say anything.
She just stood there.
Then she cried.
Your kids are taking notes.
Not on what you say.
On where you sit.
The recliner is an inheritance.
Be the generation that stands up.