In the new issue of People magazine, Oscar-winning actress Viola Davis appears on the cover and talks openly about what it was like growing up in Central Falls, R.I. in dire poverty.

“I would jump in trash bins with maggots looking for food, and I would steal from the corner store because I was hungry,’’ Davis told People. “I never had any kids come to my house because my house was a condemned building, it was boarded up, it was infested with rats. I was one of those kids who were poor and knew it.’’

Davis said she first became interested in acting after watching actress Cicely Tyson in the 1974 TV movie “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,’’ which gave her hope and inspired her to pursue a career in show business.

“It wasn’t until then that I had a visual manifestation of the target I wanted to hit,’’ Davis said. “She helped me have a very specific drive of how I was going to crawl, walk, run from that environment.’’