Viola Davis’ rags to riches story is pretty unique. To go from total poverty to becoming the first Black woman to win a Tony, an Emmy, and an Oscar for acting requires not only passion, but tremendous awareness of one’s value.

“I was the kind of poor where I knew right away I had less than everyone around me,” Viola said in a new interview with People. “We had nothing… I cannot believe my life. I just can’t. I’m so blessed.”

Viola is the first Black woman to ever be nominated for three Academy Awards, most recently winning for role in Fences, which she also played on Broadway.

Having grown up in Central Falls, Rhode Island, she and her five siblings watched their parents struggle to put food on the table. “I would jump in trash bins with maggots looking for food, and I would steal from the corner store because I was hungry,” Viola remembered. “I never had any kids come to my house because my house was a condemned building, it was boarded up, it was infested with rats. I was one of those kids who were poor and knew it.”

But regardless of her circumstances, the actress found solace in art. Viola’s sister Deloris Grans said, “Viola has a creative mind, so we always escaped with stories, little plays and shows. She was able to take us away from any pain or suffering or depression.”

Viola’s first impression of what great acting can be was from watching Cicely Tyson’s epic performance in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman: “It wasn’t until then that I had a visual manifestation of the target I wanted to hit,” she said. “She helped me have a very specific drive of how I was going to crawl, walk, run from that environment.”

Read the remainder of the interview in the latest issue of People.