Viola Davis is pulling back the curtain on the strange mechanics of elite acting training, revealing in a widely shared interview clip that Juilliard instructors would follow her through rehearsals and place a pencil in her mouth to check her tongue position as she articulated.
The EGOT winner’s larger point cuts deeper than the anecdote: technical perfection, she argues, is not art.
“No one wants to see a play or a movie and look at technical proficiency. You wanna be moved… you wanna feel less alone. They don’t get at that.”
The Pencil and the Ribcage: Davis Describes the Training
Davis painted a vivid picture of conservatory life. “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,” she said.
It didn’t stop there. “Or there’s a person following you throughout rehearsal, holding your ribcage to see if you’re breathing properly through your diaphragm.”
Her verdict was unsparing:
“When it gets like that and you leave yourself and your soul behind, you’re not an artist.”
‘What Am I Supposed to Do With My Blackness?’
Davis then named the deeper problem. “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.”
The questions she posed have resonated widely: “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?”
A Critique Davis Has Built Over Decades
The comments extend a long-running reckoning. On the Talk Easy podcast, when host Sam Fragoso asked whether Juilliard shaped her into a good actress or a perfect white actress, Davis answered without missing a beat: “Definitely a perfect white actress,” explaining the technical training served the Strindbergs, O’Neills, Chekhovs, and Shakespeares but erased the human being behind it all.
She has also described the professional trap that followed: at Juilliard, Black students proved range through exclusively white work, yet after graduating, she was mostly offered Black characters, and sometimes deemed not Black enough, leaving her in a “quagmire” of not knowing how to use herself as the canvas.
What She Wrote in Finding Me
Davis’s 2022 memoir went further still. She wrote that she felt trapped by Juilliard’s strictly Eurocentric approach, forcing her hair into wigs that never fit over her braids, and concluded: “The absolute shameful objective of this training was clear, make every aspect of your Blackness disappear.”
She has noted that Black playwrights like August Wilson and Lorraine Hansberry weren’t studied the way the European canon was, and that even beautiful work like Tennessee Williams “writes for fragile white women… It’s not me.”
The Breakthrough That Proved Her Point
Fittingly, Davis’s Juilliard story ends with self-reclamation. After winning a scholarship with an essay about her experience as a Black woman at the school, she traveled to Gambia and returned to stage a one-woman show channeling everything she learned in West Africa, a performance so acclaimed it landed her an agent before graduation.
A member of Juilliard’s Group 22 from 1989 to 1993, Davis went on to win two Tonys for August Wilson plays, an Oscar for Fences, and become the first Black actress to win a lead drama Emmy. As she put it, of finally embracing what the training told her to leave at the door: “‘Me’ was what got me in there. You know, I’m worthy. Who knew?”
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”… pic.twitter.com/MKe6OSH3wl
— sara (@saradotxyz) July 11, 2026
FAQ
What did Viola Davis say about Juilliard’s pencil technique?
She revealed that teachers followed students through rehearsals, placing a pencil in their mouths to check tongue position, and holding their ribcages to monitor diaphragm breathing.
Why does Davis criticize Juilliard’s training?
She calls it Eurocentric and soulless, arguing it prioritizes technical proficiency over moving audiences, and asks her to erase her Blackness for classics written with white characters in mind.
When did Viola Davis attend Juilliard?
From 1989 to 1993, I was a member of the Drama Division’s Group 22.
What did she call herself after the training?
She said Juilliard shaped her into “a perfect white actress” rather than a better actor.
Has Davis succeeded despite the critique?
Emphatically. She holds the Triple Crown of Acting and EGOT status, with two Tonys, an Oscar for Fences, and a historic Emmy win.
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