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I have been given a lot of roles that are downtrodden, mammy-ish.

Viola Davis

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Viola Davis
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: August 11
Actress
Film Actor
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Television Producer
St. Matthews
South Carolina
La Viola Davis
Mammy
Downtrodden
Roles
Given

More quotes by Viola Davis

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If the opportunity is not out there for you to play it, then you don't see it.
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I can be busy for three years and you may not even know what I'm busy doing because you only see me in a few scenes here or there, but I've been working my tail off because there's just not a lot.
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I think that you always want to gravitate towards people who absolutely are great at what they do and go for authenticity.
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I sort of feel like that's the most revolutionary thing we can do with our narrative for me as Black people is to show that we are just like you.
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I've always seen myself for who I am, which is a lot of things. So, I guess that when I walk into a room, I bring all those things to a role, and I've always just simply seen myself as an actor.
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I am addicted to any facial product that's anti-aging.
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At the end of the day, nobody can tell you how to tackle failure or how to handle change. The world is very good at encouraging you to go along with the status quo and at basking in your successes.
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You can't be hesitant about who you are.
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When your passion and drive are bigger than your fears, you just dive.
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And this is what was fascinating to me about 'The Help' they were ordinary people who did extraordinary things.
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August [Wilson] elevates in us is the average man in a way that is heroic and real and human. What you do is you sit with our pathology, you invest in our humanity. We're not walking around like walking symbols like we mean something larger. We're just moving throughout our lives and that's the power of the piece. That's revolutionary.
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You have to understand being an actress, and being an African American actress of a certain hue, I think that you have to be bold with your choices. Even when you're not bold with your choices, have people see it as bold.
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I can't deal with actors! I can't deal with myself. We're neurotic and miserable... I love doing what I'm doing, but while I'm doing it, I'm miserable.
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I've always seen myself for who I am, which is a lot of things.
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I am not a glam woman - this definitely is a mask I put on for the public.
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My husband [Julius Tennon] and I started a production company. We've already optioned a book and some scripts to do exactly that, to create more complicated, multi-faceted roles for African-Americans, especially African-American females. I think it's important.
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I would love to star in a remake of Thelma and Louise. Yep, that's the one I'd be interested in redoing.
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The world is very good at encouraging you to go along with the status quo and at basking in your successes. But when you hit a wall in your personal life, and you screw up, people don't give you a chance to navigate your way through it and tap into what's extraordinary about you.
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People often forget our emotional contribution to relationships and to marriage and that might be a completely sexist comment but, what I tried not to do [in Fences] is, I tried to just put that monologue as part of my stream of consciousness.
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Even when I go shopping, I don't shop as a woman. The only time I shop is when I need something, and I'm in and out in less than 30 minutes, so I have no energy to look at 50 million gowns and styles and make sketches and think about heels. I'm not girly in that way. I'm relying on the stylist to do 99 percent of the work.
Viola Davis