Quote

They say, 'To serve is to love,' and I think to serve is to heal, too.

Viola Davis

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Heal
Serve
Love
Think
Thinking

More quotes by Viola Davis

Image
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.
Viola Davis
Image
You absolutely feel, as a black actress, that you've got to ride the wave because there's just so few roles. I hate to play that card, but it's the truth. There's not a lot of roles.
Viola Davis
Image
It's harder to play a quiet character because everything happens in their stream of consciousness. They're thinking and feeling the world, but they're saying very little, so then you have to communicate it through your behavior.
Viola Davis
Image
Actor is just a strange profession, it really is, that you could be in front of the same people for years, and all of a sudden one thing happens, and it finally clicks.
Viola Davis
Image
For me, that was a hard scene [in Fences] to do twenty-something times, which (laughing), I counted. That was difficult, but once I did it, I felt like I could do anything.
Viola Davis
Image
Do not live someone else's life and someone else's idea of what womanhood is. Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that's inside of you.
Viola Davis
Image
[Denzel Washington] was rustling with something and when he came back it was with a word about loving myself and the body that I'm in because I was still going on and on about the weight thing. I just liked that, because what people don't understand is that so much of what blocks us as actors is so personal.
Viola Davis
Image
You can't be hesitant about who you are.
Viola Davis
Image
I guess they say, Necessity is the mother of invention because you have two stark choices when you find yourself in a really desperate situation. You can either fold and cave-in to it or you can become really passionate about getting out of it.
Viola Davis
Image
Your internal dialogue has got to be different from what you say. And, you know, in film, hopefully that registers and speaks volumes. It’s always the unspoken word and what’s happening behind someone’s eyes that makes it so rich.
Viola Davis
Image
When you pray, God puts people in your life to lead you when you cannot lead yourself.
Viola Davis
Image
I am not a glam woman - this definitely is a mask I put on for the public.
Viola Davis
Image
Ultimately, it's not your job, as an actress, to satisfy people's expectations or image of who you should be. Even in your life, you are just who you are.
Viola Davis
Image
When you see what the deficit is, then you have to do something about it.
Viola Davis
Image
I think at the end of the day she [Rose from Fences] is a strong woman in the truest sense of the word. I think all of that is in the narrative it's already there. The hope is there the playfulness is there it's there. I wish I could take credit for it, but it's there.
Viola Davis
Image
Denzel [Washington] just knows the actor. He knows the process, and you don't often get that.
Viola Davis
Image
I have been given a lot of roles that are downtrodden, mammy-ish.
Viola Davis
Image
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
Image
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.
Viola Davis
Image
I think that what happens so often on screen is high-stake moments tends to look too pretty. And I just don't think it's honest.
Viola Davis