United Kingdom, Sept. 10 -- Viola Davis is enjoying the "freedom of being me" after turning 61.

The How To Get Away With Murder star celebrated her birthday in August, and explained in a new interview that she's adopted a new outlook on life as she's got older.

She told AARP The Magazine: "I think that when I was younger, I was so afraid of failure. I was so terrified that failure would define me. No it doesn't. It doesn't define me and it also does not challenge my worth. Who I am is really shaped by my family, my background.

"I wasn't an MTV girl. We didn't have cable TV because I was poor. We didn't have a telephone. What shaped me is, actually, sometimes, bad memories and bad experiences.

'Knowing that they were there, but they we...