"Fences" star Viola Davis, who won an Oscar in the Best Supporting Actress category, says it was only last year that she began to feel fully confident in her skin.
"My confidence took time. It really did, to come into myself," people.com quoted the 51-year-old as saying.
She added: "At first, I just wanted to try really hard to make people see that I was pretty, that I wasn't just the drug addict from (the 2002 drama) Antoine Fisher, so it was about proving something to someone."
She said: "I was one of those people that everyone knew, but I didn't have a lot of friends. I didn't date or do any of that stuff. I was overweight and very, very shy."
Davis, who grew up in extreme poverty, added that she was "definitely not a snazzy dresser" and "definitely didn't wear make-up".
A self-described "geek", Davis says she was "always looking for a way to express what was in me, my thoughts, and I found it through theatre, so that was where I thrived".
If she did not have that outlet, Davis says, "I probably would have imploded".
--IANS
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