There are few things left to achieve in the entertainment industry once one arrives at EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony) status. Viola Davis (United States, 59 years old) is one of the few people who have achieved this milestone. Specifically, the 18th person in history. And after filming The Woman King in Cape Town, South Africa, she returned at the beginning of 2024 to complete G20. The film, directed by Patricia Riggen, debuted on Amazon Prime Video on April 10 and doesn’t hide its inspiration from 1990s action blockbusters, specifically Bruce Willis’s Die Hard and Harrison Ford’s Air Force One.
When an armed group attacks a G20 summit in South Africa, U.S. president Danielle Sutton (played by Davis) becomes its primary target. After avoiding being captured by the attackers, she turns to her combat experience as a former member of the military in order to protect her family, defend her country, and save the world’s leaders. G20 goes well beyond the novelty of seeing a Black woman play the president of the United States. “It’s about controlling your own narrative, which in my case is how I make my living,” explains the actress during a break from filming in South Africa, where this publication traveled at an invitation from the streaming platform.
It was in the pursuit of that goal that Davis and her husband Julius Tennon co-founded JuVee Productions. Their company creates content for film, television and theater that looks to promote diversity in the culture and entertainment industries. “I did it so that I didn’t have to depend on what movie and television studios can offer you, because that could be material that doesn’t have anything to do with what you’re looking for. If it’s in your hands, you have to be the change you’re looking for, and search out your own stories. You have to teach the world how it should treat you,” says the actress.
“Once when I was presenting Doubt with Meryl Streep at New York’s Lincoln Center, they asked her what kind of stories she liked to tell. She answered, ‘How many people are there in this venue, 800? Well, there are as many stories as people here.’ I think similarly. I want to tell a range of unlimited stories,” says Davis. “When I was a little girl and they told me stories, there were times that I didn’t want to be the princess who waits around, but rather, the warrior who cuts the dragon’s head off. And this is my opportunity to make those dreams more real for people who have never been included in them.”
Covered in fake sweat and bruises created with makeup, Davis faces the last days of filming aboard a helicopter surrounded by green screens. The gigantic vehicle is going to be the protagonist of one of the film’s most spectacular scenes. “I came from filming The Woman King, where I was doing action scenes five hours a day for three months, so I had already done the training for G20,” says the actress, who has done without stunt doubles for most of the day’s work.
The producer of G20, Andrew Lazar, and the movie’s director, Patricia Riggen, who previously shot several episodes of the series Jack Ryan and Dopesick, were looking to put a spin on the action genre, beyond having a woman as their star. “Often, great action movies are so focused on being spectacular that they lose focus when it comes to constructing complex characters that also elicit emotions in the viewer,” Lazar says on the South African set of the movie.
Lazar wanted the story to be “down to earth,” with a U.S. president who, in addition to saving the world, is the mother of teenage children. He also wanted the story’s location to be changed from Gibraltar, as was originally planned, to a place like Cape Town, which is large enough to host an international gathering like the G20.
For years, the legislative capital of South Africa has been an important filming location for international projects. While the movie was being shot in early 2024 in another part of the city, the giant recording studios on the metropolis’ outskirts are home to projects like the third season of The Wheel of Time, a fantasy universe on Prime Video, and the second season of Netflix’s live-action adaptation of the popular long-running anime One Piece.
Antony Starr, the actor who plays the role in the satirical superhero series The Boys, which is also in the Prime Video catalogue, seemed like the perfect choice to bring to life G20’s Rutledge. The villain is reminiscent of German terrorist Hans Gruber, as whom Alan Rickman made his film debut in Die Hard.
Both Davis and her spouse were involved as producers in the casting of Starr in the role of the antagonist. Beyond her own on-screen chemistry with the actor, the actress saw in him “a certain commitment to this profession that leads him to go one step further than normal to make his characters memorable.”
