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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
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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
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
They say, 'To serve is to love,' and I think to serve is to heal, too.
Viola Davis
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
Self-deprecation is not an answer to keeping one's balance. I think that it's very damaging.
Viola Davis
Sometimes you take a job for the money, sometimes you take it for the location, sometimes you take it for the script there are just a number of reasons, and ultimately what you see is the whole landscape of it. But I can tell you from behind the scenes - that's what it is, as an actor.
Viola Davis
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.
Viola Davis
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
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
If the opportunity is not out there for you to play it, then you don't see it.
Viola Davis
It's not anything that is just perpetuated by White America or just perpetuated by Black America. It's just a cultural understanding that you're just not a part of the equation when it comes to sexuality and I think that people mistake your lack of opportunity with the level of your talent.
Viola Davis
Anything can be achieved with a good, healthy dose of courage.
Viola Davis
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
I have been given a lot of roles that are downtrodden, mammy-ish.
Viola Davis
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
People are just not impressed by me at home.
Viola Davis
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
But along with all of that it was, Oh, isn't he a great storyteller? Oh, it's that why I married him? Isn't he handsome? Oh, what am I going to make for dinner today? I put all of that as a part of [Roses's from Fences] inner everyday monologue so, by the time he tells he that news and all of that I feel that it's there already.
Viola Davis
It was hard, that confrontation scene [in Fences], that was a hard one. I felt like it was relentless, I never felt like I could just drop the ball when the coverage was on him or anything else.
Viola Davis
I've done a really bad job with teaching daughter to put on makeup, but I have taught her how to put on lipstick.
Viola Davis
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
