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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

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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
History
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Rachel
Black
Ones
Negroes
Also
Personal
Heroines
Book
Already
Hill
Many
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Systems
Octavia
Great
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Hills
Butler
Love
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Variety
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Like
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Complicated
Lawrence

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.
Viola Davis
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When a director can give you a word that allows you to feel less tense about yourself, to make you feel like you indeed are good enough before you even get to the work, you can't ask for anything more than that.
Viola Davis
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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
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Relationships change us and make us grow.
Viola Davis
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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
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But the biggest beauty advice I've given my daughter is every morning I say, Genesis, what are the two best parts of you? And she says my brain and my heart. And I say, You've gotta remember that, Genesis. You've gotta remember that you're not what you look like, you know? I think that's the best beauty advice I could give her.
Viola Davis
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The only thing that separates women of color from everyone else is opportunity.
Viola Davis
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I am not a writer, but I feel that when our production company is successful, we'll be able to give some young writers with fresh voices an opportunity to put their work out there.
Viola Davis
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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
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I think sometimes what people miss about black people is that we're complicated.
Viola Davis
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They say, 'To serve is to love,' and I think to serve is to heal, too.
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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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 think that enjoying the fruits of one's labor is very different than arrogance. And when I was younger, I didn't know the difference. I thought that if you were gracious, that meant that you somehow were getting ahead of yourself. And I felt self-deprecation kept you balanced.
Viola Davis
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In my mind, I see a line. And over that line, I see green fields and lovely flowers and beautiful, white women with their arms stretched out to me over that line, but I can't seem to get there no how. I can't seem to get over that line.
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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And I sit in my jacuzzi with my script.
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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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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Self-deprecation is not an answer to keeping one's balance. I think that it's very damaging.
Viola Davis