Viola Davis recalls horror of accidentally locking her baby in the car during ‘sweltering’ heat

‘It was sweltering hot outside,’ actor said

Viola Davis has recounted the horrific moment she accidentally locked her child in the car.

The Woman King star, shares her only child, 12-year-old daughter Genesis Tennon, with husband actor Julius Tennon. The couple have been married since 2003.

Appearing on Variety’s latest Actors on Actors episode, Davis traded stories of motherhood mishaps with fellow actor and mum Jennifer Lawrence.

“Jennifer, I locked my kid in the car, and it was sweltering hot outside,” the 57-year-old How to Get Away with Murder lead admitted.

While on a run to Target (a popular US grocery store), with her “daughter in the back [seat],” Davis recalled getting out of the car and shutting the door before realising she didn’t have her keys.

“I threw myself on the concrete, Jennifer. I screamed,” she remembered, comparing the scene to “a Greek tragedy”.

“And then I saw these two men. I grabbed their necks and said, ‘My baby is in the car! My baby!’ And then what do I have in my hand? My phone,” she continued.

Viola Davis (Getty Images for Sony Pictures E)

“So the two men whose necks I’ve grabbed, they said, ‘Ma’am, you just have to call 911.’ And I said, ‘Oh, OK.’ So I called 911, and I proceeded to scream at the operator. Every expletive you can imagine came out of my mouth,” Davis added. “They took her out of the car.”

“Good to know that we all almost killed our kids,” Jennifer Lawrence quipped in response, before following up with her own horror story.

“I drove around with mine, didn’t realise he wasn’t buckled into the car seat. He was just teetering around, just flying,” the Hunger Games star shared.

Lawrence welcomed her first child, Cy, in early 2022 with husband Cooke Maroney, whom she married in 2019.

She’s set to return to the screen in director Gene Stupnitsky’s forthcoming comedy, No Hard Feelings, which is expected to release in cinemas on 16 June 2023.