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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
Downtrodden
Roles
Given
Mammy
More quotes by Viola Davis
I did want to mark the fact that it was the first African-American to win the Lead Actress category.I thought it was so progressive.
Viola Davis
I've been in this business 25 years. I've been eking out a living doing Broadway, off-Broadway... I've seen the unemployment line a lot.
Viola Davis
All you really need to do is shift people just a tiny bit for change to happen. It doesn't have to be huge and humongous.
Viola Davis
I think sometimes you have to see a physical manifestation of your dream. Otherwise you have to hope, pray and try to conjure something in your mind to feel like it's possible.
Viola Davis
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.
Viola Davis
It's not anything that is just perpetuated by White America or just perpetuated by Black America. It's just a cultural understanding that you're just not a part of the equation when it comes to sexuality and I think that people mistake your lack of opportunity with the level of your talent.
Viola Davis
Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that's inside of you.
Viola Davis
If you're a boxer, you want to get the ring with a Mike Tyson or Muhammad Ali type. When you're acting, you want to get in with Meryl Streep, and that's what I did.
Viola Davis
I can't speak for the Kathryn Stockett, but I would guess that she feels proud of the progress the South has made because, growing up, she experienced a very different Mississippi than the one that exists today.
Viola Davis
Do the work. Create the character, don't wing it and don't hope for an award or the Red Carpet. At the end of day the people who stay in the line the longest are the people who are good.
Viola Davis
I am the mother of a 6-year-old now, so that's changed my entire perspective.
Viola Davis
I just hope this [Emmy] is now a part of the status quo that women of color are included in the narratives that continue to write lead roles for us.
Viola Davis
When a director can give you a word that allows you to feel less tense about yourself, to make you feel like you indeed are good enough before you even get to the work, you can't ask for anything more than that.
Viola Davis
It was hard, that confrontation scene [in Fences], that was a hard one. I felt like it was relentless, I never felt like I could just drop the ball when the coverage was on him or anything else.
Viola Davis
I was like, 'What is this?' Until I found out it was stress related. That's how I internalized it. I don't do that anymore. My favorite saying in the world is, 'The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.' I am telling you, I have spent so much of my life not feeling comfortable in my skin. I am just so not there anymore.
Viola Davis
There's a big difference in doing a play or doing any project that not a lot of people see and then a project that you know everyone will see. There is more pressure, performance anxiety per se. And then when you do and what you love is really put to test.
Viola Davis
Lloyd Richards is another director who was like that, who was a teacher.
Viola Davis
Every artist, true artist, struggles with an overwhelming sense of feeling like you're not worthy.
Viola Davis
When you see what the deficit is, then you have to do something about it.
Viola Davis
I came back from vacation and I ate everything. I mean I'm sipping cocktails by the pool, thinking I'm a size 2. And now, you know, my dress is tight. So, I need it, too. I always need to remind myself: It's okay.
Viola Davis