While many people were obsessed with Viola Davis’s role in The Help, the Oscar winner has now told The New York Times that she regrets playing the role. 

“Have I ever done roles that I’ve regretted? I have, and ‘The Help’ is on that list,” she said, speaking of the constant pressure to be a beacon of hope for women of color. “Being that role model and picking up that baton when you’re struggling in your own life has been difficult,” she said, but “I choose to be the leader.”

“I just felt that at the end of the day that it wasn’t the voices of the maids that were heard,” she said. “I know Aibileen. I know Minny. They’re my grandma. They’re my mom. And I know that if you do a movie where the whole premise is, I want to know what it feels like to work for white people and to bring up children in 1963, I want to hear how you really feel about it. I never heard that in the course of the movie.”