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Let me tell you something: The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.

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
Anyone
Opportunity
Emmy
Tell
Emmys
Else
Separates
Cannot
Color
Women
Roles
Thing
Simply
Something
Winning

More quotes by Viola Davis

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And that's what people want to see when they go to the theater. I believe at the end of the day, they want to see themselves - parts of their lives they can recognize. And I feel if I can achieve that, it's pretty spectacular.
Viola Davis
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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
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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.
Viola Davis
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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
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I have been given a lot of roles that are downtrodden, mammy-ish.
Viola Davis
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I'm a sitting duck. No, seriously, I mean I wish I could say more, but I'm a sitting duck because I can't get ahead of them [cyber experts]. They're far ahead of me. That's what I learned: how vulnerable we are. It's a big, silent monster out there. That's what it feels like.
Viola Davis
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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
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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.
Viola Davis
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One of the people I've always wanted to emulate in pursuing that dream was Meryl Streep, in terms of the different types of roles she's been able to play and the number of different stories she's been able to tell.
Viola Davis
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Sometimes you see how humanity can rise above any kind of cultural ills and hate that a person's capacity to love and communicate and forgive can be bigger than anything else.
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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I really wanted to show [in fences] a marriage that is working. Not perfect, but working.
Viola Davis
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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
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I am not a glam woman - this definitely is a mask I put on for the public.
Viola Davis
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I look back at pictures of myself and I remember thinking, I was so fat when I was growing up. I was 165 pounds when I graduated from high school. I was a mess.
Viola Davis
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We grew up in abject poverty. Acting, writing scripts and skits were a way of escaping our environment at a very young age.
Viola Davis
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Every artist, true artist, struggles with an overwhelming sense of feeling like you're not worthy.
Viola Davis
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Even when I get the fried-chicken special of the day, I have to dig into it like it's filet mignon.
Viola Davis
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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.
Viola Davis
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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.
Viola Davis