Viola Davis and George Clooney are this week's issue of Entertainment Weekly for a joint shoot and interview. The two, who are apparently good pals today, have co-starred in the past in three films: Out of Sight, Solaris and Syriana. They spoke about their challenges in Hollywood; Davis dished on the Best Actress Oscar race and the lack of great roles for black actresses.

Viola Davis stated, "Only one black actress in history has been back [at the Oscars] more than once, and that’s Whoopi Goldberg. But that’s only because there aren’t a lot of roles out there that are going to bring you back. Say if you have two great roles for an African-American actress in a year — one actress can cover it. So if there’s five really good black actresses out there, and that one actress gets it all, then the other four can sit for the next three years.”

Davis also talked about the upcoming Academy Awards Best Actress race saying, “Can you wrap your mind around someone throwing you into the ring with Meryl Streep? I just don’t understand the competition thing. How can you compare two actors’ performances? How do you say one is better than the other?”

George Clooney jokingly responded to Davis saying, “I know how you do it. You have to play Margaret Thatcher and she has to play the maid.”

Funny huh? 🙂