Viola Davis Opens Up About Her Youth as 'the Hungry Kid'

— -- Viola Davis took time out of her busy schedule today to talk about a mission that is near and dear to her heart, Hunger Is, a charity she's an esteemed ambassador for that is a joint initiative created by the Albertsons Foundation and the Entertainment Industry Foundation, that aims to fight childhood hunger in America.

"We are launching a new fundraising in September," Davis said of her charity. "We're trying to get five million more breakfasts out there. We are doing in-store, online fundraising to get these breakfasts into schools."

Davis said that in the last three years alone, her organization has raised $12.5 million.

"It's so important to me because I was the hungry kid," she said. "I grew up in poverty, but it's not just poor kids that suffer from food poor households. It's middle class. It's working class ... and when you're hungry, you cannot function."

Davis also spoke about the "shame" of being hungry, she said.

"If I were to look at my entire childhood, if someone had thrown me a rope of just a meal, especially at the beginning of the day, it would have been my lifeline," she said. "I can't tell you how hard it is to talk about the fact that you were a kid that was hungry because it was like your big secret."

Watch the full interview above!

Davis also spoke about her acclaimed show "How to Get Away With Murder" and said simply, "OMG" when talking about the upcoming season.

"It warrants it," she said. "When you look at every script, every episode, you automatically channel the audience and you know how they are gonna respond. So, I say 'OMG!'"

She added, "A new mystery is going to be revealed and I'm telling you, I'm not just saying it to hook you ... [even] we haven't been able to figure it out as a cast."