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I think sometimes what people miss about black people is that we're complicated.

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
People
Miss
Complicated
Missing
Black
Sometimes
Think
Thinking

More quotes by 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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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.
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They say, 'To serve is to love,' and I think to serve is to heal, too.
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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.
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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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Creativity only resonates if you infuse real life into the work.
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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Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that's inside of you.
Viola Davis
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People are just not impressed by me at home.
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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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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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 do believe that there are African Americans who have thick accents. My mom has a thick accent my relatives have thick accents. But sometimes you have to adjust when you go into the world of film, TV, theatre, in order to make it accessible to people.
Viola Davis
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Now, a lot of people may be surprised at that, but I'm very dedicated to working out. Usually, it's running. It clears my mind, totally. I get on the treadmill, which I just bought, and I run on that for about 40-45 minutes.
Viola Davis
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I've always just simply seen myself as an actor. And I believe that it serves me well to just think in terms of my craft. If hypothetically, I saw myself only as a sex symbol, or as some other limited stereotype, I think I would feel like a complete failure.
Viola Davis
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It's time for people to see us, people of colour, for what we really are: complicated.
Viola Davis
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No matter what, people don't think of me for glamorous parts. I'll go to an audition or a meeting in a pretty dress, and they still think of me as depressed or embattled. Hopefully, that will change.
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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We as artists cannot be politicians. We as artists can only be truth-tellers.
Viola Davis
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I started a production company out of necessity, the need for great narratives for actors of color.
Viola Davis