Quote

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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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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Scene
Laughing
Times
Difficult
Fences
Felt
Counted
Anything
Fence
Hard
Twenty
Something
Twenties

More quotes by Viola Davis

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I think that I'm coming off as the biggest alcoholic in the world.
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Acting, it's the disappearance of self, disappearance of your own needs and your own wants and the kind of embracing of the character that makes it work.
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I think sometimes what people miss about black people is that we're complicated.
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At the end of the day, nobody can tell you how to tackle failure or how to handle change. The world is very good at encouraging you to go along with the status quo and at basking in your successes.
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You have to understand being an actress, and being an African American actress of a certain hue, I think that you have to be bold with your choices. Even when you're not bold with your choices, have people see it as bold.
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Cicely Tyson was my inspiration to become an actor.
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It's harder to work with people who are not as dedicated to their craft. It also leaves you a better actor when you finish the project, since you always feel like you've learned something.
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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.
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I didn't see myself any different from my white counterparts in school. I just didn't! I thought I could do what they did. And what I didn't do well, I thought people were going to give me the opportunity to do well, because maybe they saw my talent, so they would give me a chance. I had no idea that they would see me completely different.
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We as artists cannot be politicians. We as artists can only be truth-tellers.
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Denzel [Washington] just knows the actor. He knows the process, and you don't often get that.
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Creativity only resonates if you infuse real life into the work.
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When you see what the deficit is, then you have to do something about it.
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I don't think most people understand acting, even the people who call themselves savvy, even actors.
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I had several teachers who inspired me, in both the public school system and the Upward Bound program. I needed several, because I lived in such abject poverty and dysfunction. And they're still in my life today, because I consider them to be friends, actually.
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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.
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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.
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And that's what people want to see when they go to the theater. I believe at the end of the day, they want to see themselves - parts of their lives they can recognize. And I feel if I can achieve that, it's pretty spectacular.
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That's how I digest it, 'cause I can press the fast-forward button and I know that I'm gonna have to continue to be an actor, continue to make choices, continue to perform in a show every week.
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Self-deprecation is not an answer to keeping one's balance. I think that it's very damaging.
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