“I did it to put every young Black girl in this story; I want them to see themselves,” Viola Davis says of her role in the action film “G20.”
EGOT winner Viola Davis is flexing a different kind of muscle in Prime Video’s latest action movie, “G20.” Stepping into the role of a U.S. president under siege during a world leaders summit, Davis says she’s finally getting “back to the fun.”
“I don’t think every movie you do has to be considered for an Academy Award. I wanted to do something that families could watch together, something popular,” Davis told The Times of London. “But internally, you’re always trying to get back to the fun.”
She and her husband, Julius Tennon, had their eyes on the project as early as 2015. For Davis—who’s spent her career stacking up accolades for deeply dramatic roles—playing what she calls an “a**-kicking American president in a preposterous hoot of an action movie” was more than just a pivot. It was personal.
“I needed some levity in my life,” she explained. “The only two people you owe anything to are your six-year-old self and your 80-year-old self, [and] ‘six-year-old Viola squealed.’”
That same six-year-old spirit guided her decision to sign on, along with a deeper sense of duty to little Black girls like her daughter, Genesis. Long before she was a teen, Genesis would ask to be a character in the fantasy stories Davis used to tell at bedtime.
“She’d say, ‘Put me in the story, Mama,’” Davis recalled to USA Today. “So, why did I do this movie? I did it to put every young Black girl in this story; I want them to see themselves without the limitations society often puts on them. When you see it, you can believe it. But the pressure of seeing something within yourself without seeing the evidence of it in the world—that’s tough. So when you get the baton in your hand, that’s your new job: to pay it forward.”
Davis’ portrayal of a Black woman in the Oval Office feels like more than just fantasy—it reads like a version of reality that nearly was, had Vice President Kamala Harris secured the presidency in 2024. While filming began before Harris announced her campaign against Donald Trump, Davis is unwavering in her belief that a president who looks like her is well within reach.
“I do not think it’s a suspension of disbelief to imagine someone who looks like me as the president,” she said.
Her co-star Marsai Martin, who plays the president’s daughter in the film, echoed that same hopefulness.
“As an audience member now, you’ll be thinking, man, this is what could have been. But while we were filming, I was thinking, wow, this is what is about to be,” Martin said in a USA Today interview. “Movies remind us of things that can still happen. I knew this movie would be needed.”
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