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PEOPLE & ARTS Friday 7 december 2018
Viola Davis says 'stop taming us' at Hollywood event

By LINDSEY BAHR mistake in our career that
Associated Press has come with conse-
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ac- quences. And probably
tress and producer Vio- everyone in this room can
la Davis gave a rousing agree, that among all of us
speech about leadership here today, when it comes
and authenticity to a well- to the worst mistake or mis-
heeled crowd of Hollywood take with the worst conse-
power players Wednesday quences, I definitely win,
morning at The Hollywood hands down," Lewinsky
Reporter's Women in Enter- said. "Get comfortable with
tainment breakfast. the fact that at some point
Davis, who was being hon- you will make a mistake in
ored with the Sherry Lansing your career...And know,
Leadership Award, said from the deepest part of
that she doesn't always you, that you can move on
come to mind when she from it, you can grow from
thinks of the idea of leader- it, and you can survive it."
ship — Martin Luther King, One person who owned up
Jr. does — but that she is to a mistake was Lena Dun-
trying through her produc- ham, who came on stage
tion company to embrace with the mother of a wom-
women of color as they re- an who accused a "Girls"
ally are. writer of sexual assault last
"There is no limit to how we Viola Davis arrives at The Hollywood Reporter's Women in Entertainment Breakfast at Milk Studios November. Dunham at the
see narratives with people on Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2018, in Los Angeles. time came out in support
of color," Davis said to a Associated Press of the writer, who was her
rapt crowd that includ- friend, and questioned the
ed Mandy Moore, Lupita She urged those in power they're reduced to being azon Studios, where they account of Aurora Perrine-
Nyong'o, Awkwafina, Rita in Hollywood to show more maternal, to being the sav- will produce a film about au. Since then Dunham has
Wilson, "Roma" breakout authentic black female ior, to being denied sexual- pioneering politician Shir- become friends with Auro-
Yalitza Aparicio and Kesha. characters. "My main mes- ity, to being there to, "Make ley Chisholm. Davis will star ra and her mother Brittany
"There is only so much I am sage is 'stop taming us,' she that white character feel as the New York congress- Perrineau.
going to cow tow to this said. "Everything that we better." woman. "I denied her experience
business." are inside is what makes art "What is in my heart is I can- Davis was in good compa- publicly. That will always
She said she and her hus- in this world rich ... There is not lead with bull(asterisk) ny at the breakfast event, be my greatest regret,"
band Julius Tennon started something to be said about (asterisk)(asterisk)(asterisk)," where comedian Hannah Dunham said. "But with
JuVee Productions be- being wild. Steve McQueen she said. "I cannot lead with Gadsby chided "good men Brittany and Aurora's love,
cause she was tired of cel- is wild. Barry Jenkins. Ryan lying. I cannot lead with the talking about bad men" forgiveness and bravery it
ebrating movies that didn't Coogler.... These people lying about what the road and Monica Lewinsky talk- has become my greatest
have "me in it." who just dare. Who say you is out there." ed about her "mistake" and moment of evolution and
"I don't mean me Viola," cannot silence me." Her company recently learning how to survive and education...I learned to
Davis said. "I mean me as a Even when there are closed a first look feature grow from it. listen."q
black woman." black characters, she said, production deal with Am- "We have each made a
John McPhee is at his brilliant best in 'The Patch'

By ROB MERRILL read it. that can "accelerate like writers write: "Lamport tops
Associated Press "The Patch" is a slim book a bullet" when prey swims them all with Elihu Linot,
"The Patch" (Farrar, Straus divided in two. The first past. By the end, this fish who always wrote on the
and Giroux), by John part is a collection of five tale is really about father- backs of women, starting
McPhee essays he dubs "The Sport- hood as McPhee's dad suf- at the neck and working
Eighty-seven and 33. That's ing Scene" — stories about fers a stroke in a Baltimore down. His editor eloped
the age of John McPhee fishing, football, golf, la- County hospital. with a manuscript. There
and the number of books crosse and bears that all The second part, the "al- was no carbon."
he's written, counting his appeared over the years bum quilt," features writ- McPhee's curiosity is leg-
latest, "The Patch." in The New Yorker. The sec- ing about everything from endary and evident
One could forgive McPhee ond, which McPhee likens Oscar Hammerstein to throughout this volume.
if he spent all his time in a to an "album quilt" he fas- McPhee's first drink when There's a two-page tribute
canoe with a fishing rod tidiously took the time to he was 10 years old. ("One to actress Sophia Loren
when not enjoying the assemble from previously thing it wasn't was unpleas- ("Her hands are huge. Her
company of his 10 grand- written work, consists of ant.") All are rich with de- forehead is low. Her mouth This cover image released
children. But McPhee is a various fragments of things tail and McPhee's direct is too large. And, mamma by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
shows "The Patch," by John
writer, arguably America's from over the years that style and trademark sense mia, she is absolutely gor- McPhee.
greatest nonfiction essayist haven't yet been bound of humor. "He is predict- geous."), a profile of Bill Associated Press
ever, and if he can find a up in a book. ably unpredictable," writes Wagner, the chief taster
practical way to do it, one The standout in part one is McPhee in a remem- at Hershey's, empowered who have stage names
senses he'll pen something the title essay that first ran brance of the late tennis to "send ninety thousand ("Boris Karloff could not
from his coffin. in 2010, which begins as a star Arthur Ashe. And in an pounds on its way to be have frightened a soul as
If he does, count me as tribute to chain pickerel, ode to satirist Felicia Lamp- eaten" and a laugh-out- William Henry Pratt").q
one of the millions who will the "lone ambush hunter" ort, commenting on where loud list of Hollywood stars