Tonya Williams's soap opera character increased the number of Black women doctors in the U.S.
The Young and the Restless alum talks about her dedication to equality in a Q interview
In the early '90s, Tonya Williams received a call from the Association of Black Women Physicians. They wanted to give her an award for her role as Dr. Olivia Winters on The Young and the Restless.
"I thought, for just a minute, they were like, 'We're giving you a great doctor award,'" Williams tells Tom Power in a Q interview. "I almost wanted to say, 'You guys don't think I'm a real doctor, do you?'"
The Association assured her that they knew she wasn't actually a doctor. They wanted to recognize her because they had seen a 400 per cent increase in Black women interested in becoming doctors — all because they had seen Williams, a Black actor, play one on TV.
"It was an epiphany for me," she says. "I thought more of the power of our industry and thought more about who's in control of that power. And how do the people, especially people of colour, get some of that power?"
The Canadian actor had been in the film industry since she was a teenager, becoming famous for her appearances in a milk commercial and on the children's show Polka Dot Door.
Williams was often the only person of colour on a set. The beauty department only had supplies for white skin tones, so she had to buy and apply her own makeup, hair products and wigs.
In 2000, Williams decided she wanted to see more people of colour in the film world. She started the Reelworld Film Festival, which screens the movies of racialized and Indigenous Canadian filmmakers, as well as provides them with professional development.
The film festival turned into a foundation and an institute, which took up more and more of Williams's time. She left The Young and the Restless in 2005 to focus on her Reelworld work full-time.
Her colleagues were shocked. She was making good money. She could have stayed on the long-running soap opera for many more years.
"Even today, 20 years later, I think it's still challenging for people to understand the choices I make," she says. "But Reelworld was a kernel of something that was inside of me that needed to grow and needed to expand."
The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television recognized Williams for her incredible work with Reelworld. They recently gave Williams the 2024 Changemaker Award for her devotion to promoting and amplifying people of colour in media.
Williams was doing this work way before Reelworld. When she started acting, she refused to take any roles that were based on negative stereotypes of Black people.
This stemmed from watching both her parents work extremely hard to uplift themselves as Black professionals — her mother was a nurse, her father was a lawyer — while always giving back to their community.
"I can't imagine both my parents looking at the one child they brought into the world, perpetuating the stereotypes that they fought against their whole life," she says.
The full interview with Tonya Williams is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview with Tonya Williams produced by Vanessa Nigro.
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