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Denzel [Washington] just knows the actor. He knows the process, and you don't often get that.
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
Washington
Actor
Actors
Process
Often
More quotes by Viola Davis
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
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
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. And I think that's a powerful message in this time of political strife.
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
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
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 worked in television I'm the Failed Pilot Queen, I've done so many television shows, pilots, theater ... when you do it for so long, I'm telling you, you get to the point where it becomes varied because you take what's available for a number of reasons. It's just an occupational hazard.
Viola Davis
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
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
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
Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that's inside of you.
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
I had to invest in the love and understand that with the love comes the pain. So when he tells me that, the monologue is already there. Does that make sense?
Viola Davis
Actor is just a strange profession, it really is, that you could be in front of the same people for years, and all of a sudden one thing happens, and it finally clicks.
Viola Davis
I think sometimes what people miss about black people is that we're complicated.
Viola Davis
You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.
Viola Davis
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
That's why there's so much bad acting out there, because you could see actors watching themselves.
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
And classically not beautiful is a fancy term for saying ugly. And denouncing you. And erasing you.
Viola Davis