The 51-year-old actress hasn't forgotten where she came from.
Viola Davis is not one to take life for granted.
In an emotional Instagram post shared on Friday, the Oscar-winner, 51, revealed why she is sharing the only photo she has from her childhood.
“#FlashbackFriday ‘The only picture I have of my childhood is the picture of me in kindergarten. I have this expression on my face — it’s not a smile, it’s not a frown. I swear to you, that’s the girl who wakes up in the morning and who looks around her house and her life saying, ‘I cannot believe how God has blessed me. I was the kind of poor where I knew right away I had less than everyone around me,’” she captioned the photo.
WATCH: Viola Davis Wins Best Supporting Actress Oscar, Tearfully Thanks Daughter
“‘Our environment, our physical space reflected our income,’” she continued. “At home, ‘the boards were coming off the walls,’ she says, and the family endured ‘shoddy plumbing and no phone and no food and rats and all of that. That very much was visible to me.’ (Excerpt from my interview w/ @People).”
The How to Get Away With Murder actress is the first black woman to ever be nominated for three Academy Awards, and she had plenty to celebrate last month when she won her very first Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Fences.
"There's one place where all the people with the greatest potential are gathered. And that's the graveyard," Davis said during her acceptance speech. "People ask me all the time, 'What kind of stories do you want to tell?' And I say, exhume those bodies. Exhume those stories. The stories of the people who dreamed big and never saw those dreams to fruition. People who fell in love and lost."
Hear Davis’ touching Oscar acceptance speech in the video below.