FENCES Star & Tony Winner Viola Davis to Appear on CBS SUNDAY MORNING, 1/15

Golden Globe winner Viola Davis feels an obligation to give back and help create good roles for people of color in Hollywood, she tells Lee Cowan in an interview for CBS SUNDAY MORNING to be broadcast Sunday, Jan. 15 (9:00 AM, ET) on the CBS Television Network.

Davis, who has earned raves for her work in the film "Fences," opposite Denzel Washington, started JuVee Productions in 2011 with her husband, actor Julius Tennon, as a way to create multi-platform projects that help foster diversity in media.

"I just want different narratives for people of color, especially women of color," Davis tells Cowan. "I just want something that's different. I don't want us to be put in a box. I want it to be kind of a redefinition of who we are. If I can even achieve that in a tiny way, I'll be good. I'll be good."

Early on, Davis' performances earned critical praise. She made the most of the parts she got, but says she wasn't getting bigger, meatier roles because of her look.

"I have a deep voice," Davis says. "I probably have the 'character' look. I am a woman of a certain hue. Those roles, those kinds of diverse roles, weren't being written for anyone who looked like me."

The result, however, was a body of work that was praised within the business yet didn't get high-profile attention.

"It's like I played the doctor, I played the lawyer, I played all those roles, but you didn't know who I was," Davis says. "And that was getting tiresome. And you know why? The thing about it is you could create the most specific emotional life for a character, you really do that. You really do that work, but nobody sees it if you don't have the words. They just don't see it. It's like having a great body and being in a burlap sack."

Those days are behind her now. And her new film, "Fences," in which she and Washington reprise their Tony-winning performances of August Wilson's stage drama, is generating Oscar buzz.

In a wide-ranging interview, Davis talks about her career in film and television, and her childhood in Central Falls, R.I., where she was raised in a home where money was practically non-existent.

"I literally would dream about having food in the refrigerator and in the cupboards," Davis tells Cowan. "That's it."

CBS SUNDAY MORNING is broadcast Sundays (9:00-10:30 AM ET) on the CBS Television Network. Rand Morrison is the executive producer.

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