Viola Davis Gets Oscar Season Fail From 'Woman King' Celebration

It took about an hour of speeches saluting Viola Davis during the film at the 48th Annual Chaplin Gala at Lincoln Center before someone addressed the elephant in the room.

"When I see a movie like 'The Woman King,' there's Viola's fingerprints all over it," said Jessica Chastain, co-star of Davis' 'The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby'. “A film like this with a director and a cast of powerful black women can be shot in Hollywood today because of Viola's advocacy for women of color. Maybe one day a film like this can be nominated for an Oscar."

The statement was met with rapturous applause from an audience of Lincoln Center donors, industry colleagues, and numerous theater students from Davis' alma mater, Juilliard. It was an explicit call for the biggest snub at the Oscars to cast a shadow over last year's awards season, and contextualized a celebration that made up for the missed opportunity.

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Davis' performance as an African war general seemed like a shoo-in for Best Actress after Sony's release grossed nearly $100 million following its successful fall circuit launch, but Davis was left out of the category, while the film itself garnered no nominations - a result that led to questions about whether the Academy had truly addressed its diversity issues in the wake of #OscarsSoWhite.< /p>

At a dinner after the ceremony, where board members paid up to $100,000 per table for the fundraising event, Chastain - who still has two months left in the production of Broadway from "A Doll's House" - was still reeling from exclusion. "Somebody had to say it," she told IndieWire. “I mean, come on. Not a single Oscar nomination for this film? There must have been members of the Academy in that room, right?"

Indeed, there were. The crowd ranged from CAA heavyweight Kevin Huvane to prolific documentarian Roger Ross Williams, as well as several other notable actors and filmmakers who took the stage at the ceremony to congratulate Davis, only the third EGOT winner to receive the tribute by Chaplin Mike Nichols and Audrey Hepburn. Despite Davis' 2016 Oscar win for "Fences," the event showed the 57-year-old actress' talent has often been underestimated — and in some cases, the highlight of otherwise forgettable films. For every "Widows" or "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," there are lesser-known gigs such as "Troop Zero" and "Lila & Eve" where she still manages to stand out.

"Widows" filmmaker Steven McQueen acknowledged this in his speech. “Watching those clips on screen is like watching Mike Tyson knockouts,” he said. "It's Viola and someone else listening. You see someone who is the truth. It's chilling and eye-opening."

While "Woman King" director Gina Prince-Bythewood didn't address the recent snub in its explicit terms earlier this year, she did speak about the performance's cultural impact. "The number of viewers who have shared that this film and her performance as Nanisca literally changed their lives is astounding and inspiring," Prince-Bythewood said. "That's why we fought so hard to allow black female characters to show their mess."

She also announced Davis' "insane work ethic," a notion echoed by Meryl Streep, who recalls working with Davis on John Patrick Shanley's 2008 "Doubt," the escape to the screen that resulted in his first Oscar nomination. Streep recalled her frustrations when Shanley kept asking for more takes of the scene in which Davis, as the mother of a Catholic school child who may have been abused by her priest, pushes back against the allegations of the nun of Streep. "I said, 'You kill that actor,'" Streep recalled. "I know an Oscar performance when I see one."

Shanley insisted they return the following week for additional reshoots, when Davis delivered the devastating performance that ended in the film. "The greatest artists have a knack for conveying what it is to be human," Streep said. "It's just undeniable and it can't be stopped for lack of opportunity."