Viola Davis Lists The Help Among Role Regrets

Though it gave her career a boost and even saw her nominated for an Oscar for best actress, the legendary Viola Davis regrets a few things about her role in the 2011 film The Help.

Based on the 2009 novel by Kathryn Stockett of the same name, The Help featured Emma Stone as Skeeter Phelan, a young white woman sharing the stories she collected from black housemaids working in her area of the segregated south. As Aibileen Clark, Davis had stories for days.

Related | Viola Davis Will Play Lupita Nyong'o's Mother in The Woman King

"Have I ever done roles that I've regretted? I have, and The Help is on that list," Davis told the New York Times during a Q&A. Clarifying, Davis said that when all was said and done, it didn't feel like the maids had truly found their voice. "I just felt that at the end of the day that it wasn't the voices of the maids that were heard," she said. "I Know Aibileen, I know MInny. They're my grandma. They're my mom. And I know that if you do a movie where the whole premise is, I want to know what it feels like to work for white people and to bring up children in 1963, I want to know how you really feel about it. I never heard that in the course of the movie."

Davis of course specified that her overall experience working on the film was pleasant. "The friendships that I formed are ones that I'm going to have for the rest of my life," she said. "I had a great experience with these other actresses, who are extraordinary human beings. And I could not ask for a better collaborator than Tate Taylor." Read the full Times interview, here.