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Cicely Tyson was my inspiration to become an actor.

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
Tyson
Actor
Inspiration
Actors
Become

More quotes by Viola Davis

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Any actor will tell you, as soon as your ego and your vanity come into the mix, it destroys your work. Completely destroys it.
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It's always hard to be private in public, which is what acting is because you have to do thing really emotionally naked.
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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.
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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.
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I haven't seen most of what I've done. I can't even list them. Most television jobs. I haven't seen a lot.
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Anything can be achieved with a good, healthy dose of courage.
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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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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.
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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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Tyler Perry's 'Madea Goes to Jail!' Which, I have to tell you, of everything that I've ever done in my career, that's the only thing that's perked up the ears of my nieces and nephews. That is it, that's done it for them. That made me a bona fide star in their eyes!
Viola Davis
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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
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It feels really good to embrace exactly who I am and be my sexy, to be my sexualized, to be my woman.
Viola Davis
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I think sometimes what people miss about black people is that we're complicated.
Viola Davis
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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
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I've done a really bad job with teaching daughter to put on makeup, but I have taught her how to put on lipstick.
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Eating bread in Hollywood is a no-no!
Viola Davis
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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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Are there women in your world now that have given you those lessons in confidence? Oh absolutely. Meryl [Streep] does it all the time. I think she does it in a way that she doesn't even understand or think she's doing it.
Viola Davis
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We as artists cannot be politicians. We as artists can only be truth-tellers.
Viola Davis
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It would be great to bust through and make history. But what's more important is the opportunity to continue to get roles that are complicated and wonderful, to be a part of the narrative and to get to do what our counterparts are able to do. It doesn't just stop at holding an award.
Viola Davis