In the clip, Viola Davis says she felt “like a bad ass” after getting through her intense physical transformation.
“When I was a girl wanting to win the Miss Central Falls Recreation Contest — wanting to look good in a bikini, wanting to be thin and cute and delicate and pretty — I just wanted to be willowy and thin. I was always muscular and thicker, and I felt like my femininity could not be created with this canvas. And then all of a sudden, with this role, my muscles, my arms, my thick legs, my heavy voice were perfect. I felt unapologetic about it. I celebrated it physically in every way,” Davis tells PEOPLE. “Sometimes you do a movie and then it’s over. And sometimes, you do a movie and it shifts you a little bit. You’re a little bit better for it. And that’s what it’s been like for me with the training.”