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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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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
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More quotes by Viola Davis
I get so excited when my daughter says something new, which she is doing every day. I can leave the house for a few hours, come back and meet a totally different person. That's very exciting to me.
Viola Davis
You can't be hesitant about who you are.
Viola Davis
It's time for people to see us, people of colour, for what we really are: complicated.
Viola Davis
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
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
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
And classically not beautiful is a fancy term for saying ugly. And denouncing you. And erasing you.
Viola Davis
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
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 just look at women sometimes and I just want to ask them, Do you know how fabulous you are?
Viola Davis
I have a lot of spiritual books that I read that I really, really love - everything from the Bible to Joseph Campbell, who I love. He wrote The Hero of a Thousand Faces. It's about exploring what is heroic in you. It helps me a lot.
Viola Davis
I really wanted to show [in fences] a marriage that is working. Not perfect, but working.
Viola Davis
When you're working as an actor, you don't think that when you get out of school, it's going to be so hard to get a job. Just to get a job. Any job. Whatsoever. You don't think that people are going to see you in a certain way.
Viola Davis
I already optioned a book called The Personal History of Rachel DuPree. I also like The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. And I love all of Octavia Butler's books. She's created some very complicated black heroines with a variety of belief systems. There are many great books out there, but those are a few of the ones that stand out.
Viola Davis
I have to say, doing theater, that's what you're trained to do. Doing film, when I first started doing it, felt like something else entirely. It felt like the difference between, I don't know, waiting tables and painting a great work of art. It's night and day. I didn't feel like it was even acting.
Viola Davis
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
My biggest fear is that a paparazzi or someone ... is going to come in my backyard and see me when I get in my pool. That would be very unfortunate.
Viola Davis
Any actor will tell you, as soon as your ego and your vanity come into the mix, it destroys your work. Completely destroys it.
Viola Davis
To me, it's always a luxury to be able to work with the best of the best because they make it easier for you to do what you do.
Viola Davis
I didn't see myself any different from my white counterparts in school. I just didn't! I thought I could do what they did. And what I didn't do well, I thought people were going to give me the opportunity to do well, because maybe they saw my talent, so they would give me a chance. I had no idea that they would see me completely different.
Viola Davis