Viola Davis
Acting
- Born:
- 1965-08-11
- Place of birth:
- St. Matthews, South Carolina, USA
Biography
Viola Davis (/vaɪˈoʊlə/ vy-OH-lə; born August 11, 1965) is an American actress and film producer. Her accolades include both the Triple Crown of Acting and EGOT. Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012 and 2017. The New York Times ranked her ninth on its list of the greatest actors of the 21st century (2020). Davis received the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2025. A graduate of Juilliard, Davis began her career in Central Falls, Rhode Island, appearing in small stage productions. She made her Broadway debut in the August Wilson play Seven Guitars (1996) for which she earned her first Tony nomination. She would later win two Tony Awards, both for Wilson plays. Her first win was for Best Featured Actress in a Play playing the titular character Tonya, a woman grappling with trauma and loss in King Hedley II (2001), followed by her second win for Best Actress in a Play playing Rose Maxson, a working class mother in Fences (2010). She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for reprising her role in the 2016 film adaptation of Fences. She was Oscar-nominated for playing a complex mother in Doubt (2008), a 1960s housemaid in The Help (2011) and Ma Rainey in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020). On television, she became the first black actress to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her role as lawyer Annalise Keating in the ABC legal drama series How to Get Away with Murder (2014–2020). Davis joined the DCEU playing Amanda Waller starting with Suicide Squad (2016). She has also starred in the crime drama Widows(2018), and historical action film The Woman King (2022). Davis and her husband are founders of the production company JuVee Productions, and she is also widely recognized for her advocacy and support for human rights and women of color. She became a L'Oréal Paris ambassador in 2019. The audiobook narration of her 2022 memoir Finding Me won her the Grammy Award for Best Audio Book, Narration & Storytelling Recording. Description above from the Wikipedia article Viola Davis, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For
Filmography
Children of Blood and Bone
Portrait of an Artist: Stephen Curry
W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel With a Cause
G20
Number One on the Call Sheet
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
The Ebony Canal: A Story of Black Infant Mortality
Creature Commandos
Hollywood Black
Kung Fu Panda 4
Predator or Prey: Making The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Hot Ones Versus
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Air
Food 2050
Black Adam
The Woman King
The Jennifer Hudson Show
Oprah + Viola: A Netflix Special Event
The First Lady
Peacemaker
The Unforgivable
The Suicide Squad
C ce soir
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Dear...
Celebrity IOU
Giving Voice
Live in Front of a Studio Audience: "All in the Family" and "Good Times"
On Broadway
The Kelly Clarkson Show
A Touch of Sugar
Troop Zero
Widows
Beyond Boundaries: The Harvey Weinstein Scandal
Fences
Suicide Squad
Custody
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Close Up with The Hollywood Reporter
Lila & Eve
Hot Ones
August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand
Blackhat
Variety Studio: Actors on Actors
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him
How to Get Away with Murder
Get On Up
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them
Late Night with Seth Meyers
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
Ender's Game
Prisoners
Love, Marilyn
Beautiful Creatures
Sofia the First
Won't Back Down
Scandal
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Dark Girls
The Help
It's Kind of a Funny Story
Trust
Eat Pray Love
Knight and Day
Beyond All Boundaries
Law Abiding Citizen
Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen
State of Play
Doubt: Stage to Screen
Madea Goes to Jail
United States of Tara
Doubt
Nights in Rodanthe
The Andromeda Strain
Jesse Stone: Sea Change
Traveler
Disturbia
The Graham Norton Show
The Architect
Brothers and Sisters
Life Is Not a Fairytale: The Fantasia Barrino Story
World Trade Center
The Best of The Tony Awards: The Plays
Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise
Jesse Stone: Night Passage
Syriana
Get Rich or Die Tryin'
Threshold
Stone Cold
Century City
The Ellen DeGeneres Show
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Antwone Fisher
Solaris
Far from Heaven
Hack
Without a Trace
Live from E!
Kate & Leopold
Ocean's Eleven
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
The Guardian
The Shrink Is In
Amy & Isabelle
The Division
Traffic
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
City of Angels
Third Watch
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Judging Amy
Providence
Grace & Glorie
Out of Sight
The Pentagon Wars
Miss Apprehension and Squirt
The View
The Practice
The Substance of Fire
Access Hollywood
The Actor Awards Presented by SAG-AFTRA
NYPD Blue
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
The Simpsons
CBS News Sunday Morning
60 Minutes
The Grammys
Tony Awards
The Oscars
Hallmark Hall of Fame
Golden Globe Awards
Operation Othello
Two Butterflies
I Almost Forgot About You
Small Great Things
The Personal History of Rachel DuPree
Ally Clark
House of Games
Ascent