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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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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
Remember
Graduated
Back
Fats
Look
Pounds
Looks
Mess
Thinking
Pictures
Growing
High
School

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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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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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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Ordinary people who are just kind of just going about their lives are transformed into heroes because they have the courage to put their voices out there. I think that's a powerful message in this time of political strife.
Viola Davis
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As an artist, you've got to see the mess. That's what we do. We get a human being, and it's like putting together a puzzle. And the puzzle has got to be a mixture, a multifaceted mixture of human emotions, and not all of it is going to be pretty.
Viola Davis
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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.
Viola Davis
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I think that's something that people feel that I do really well I don't mind it, because ultimately I think the characters I play move people, and who wouldn't want to move people?
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.
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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I've always seen myself for who I am, which is a lot of things.
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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I think that what happens so often on screen is high-stake moments tends to look too pretty. And I just don't think it's honest.
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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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
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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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I think sometimes what people miss about black people is that we're complicated.
Viola Davis
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Relationships change us and make us grow.
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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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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That's why there's so much bad acting out there, because you could see actors watching themselves.
Viola Davis