Quote

You don't get the pay-off when you're playing a quiet character, so sometimes you want to just throw out all your work and say, Okay, let me do something really funny or gimmicky, just so that I can get some attention in this scene.

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
Funny
Gimmicky
Character
Throw
Sometimes
Okay
Work
Quiet
Something
Scene
Really
Pay
Playing
Attention

More quotes by Viola Davis

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I really want my acting to be definitive a lot of times, but I must feel like in any given moment there is a lot of things going on with Rose. I kept telling Denzel [Washington] throughout filming [Fences] that the house is her joy and her tomb.
Viola Davis
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I really wanted to show [in fences] a marriage that is working. Not perfect, but working.
Viola Davis
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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
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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
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[I listen to] Uptown Funk, Bruno Mars, sometimes even Nina Simone and Adele. Whatever comes up, whatever floats my boat, whatever makes me tap into something in me to just decompress - I listen to that.
Viola Davis
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Ordinary people who are just kind of just going about their lives are transformed into heroes because they have the courage to put their voices out there. And I think that's a powerful message in this time of political strife.
Viola Davis
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Just because I was 30 doesn't mean I was grown. God, I was such an idiot. I was an absolute idiot at 30. And I grew up.
Viola Davis
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I had several teachers who inspired me, in both the public school system and the Upward Bound program. I needed several, because I lived in such abject poverty and dysfunction. And they're still in my life today, because I consider them to be friends, actually.
Viola Davis
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I think that's why August [Wilson] named her Rose [in Fences] I really do. She's a rose in her sweetness and her kindness and in everything else, even her anger towards the end.
Viola Davis
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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
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I don't have any time to stay up all night worrying about what someone who doesn't love me has to say about me.
Viola Davis
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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
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Eating bread in Hollywood is a no-no!
Viola Davis
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I started a production company out of necessity, the need for great narratives for actors of color.
Viola Davis
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I worked in television I'm the Failed Pilot Queen, I've done so many television shows, pilots, theater ... when you do it for so long, I'm telling you, you get to the point where it becomes varied because you take what's available for a number of reasons. It's just an occupational hazard.
Viola Davis
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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
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I've been to acting school and I think that at the end of the day, when you just focus on the work and you're comfortable with who you are, that at some point someone's going to recognize your talent and give you an opportunity.
Viola Davis
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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.
Viola Davis
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Denzel [Washington] just knows the actor. He knows the process, and you don't often get that.
Viola Davis
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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.
Viola Davis