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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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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
Happens
Tends
Look
Screen
Looks
Screens
Think
Honest
Thinking
Pretty
High
Often
Stake
Moments
Stakes

More quotes by Viola Davis

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My biggest fear is that a paparazzi or someone ... is going to come in my backyard and see me when I get in my pool. That would be very unfortunate.
Viola Davis
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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.
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.
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I can't speak for the Kathryn Stockett, but I would guess that she feels proud of the progress the South has made because, growing up, she experienced a very different Mississippi than the one that exists today.
Viola Davis
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And classically not beautiful is a fancy term for saying ugly. And denouncing you. And erasing you.
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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And I sit in my jacuzzi with my script.
Viola Davis
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Lloyd Richards is another director who was like that, who was a teacher.
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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.
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[Denzel Washington] was rustling with something and when he came back it was with a word about loving myself and the body that I'm in because I was still going on and on about the weight thing. I just liked that, because what people don't understand is that so much of what blocks us as actors is so personal.
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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When you see what the deficit is, then you have to do something about it.
Viola Davis
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I was like, 'What is this?' Until I found out it was stress related. That's how I internalized it. I don't do that anymore. My favorite saying in the world is, 'The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.' I am telling you, I have spent so much of my life not feeling comfortable in my skin. I am just so not there anymore.
Viola Davis
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Each character has their own challenges. The challenge to doing one scene is your whole history of who you are and your relationships, you only have this one shot.
Viola Davis
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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
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Each role has its own different challenges.
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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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 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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Ultimately, it's not your job, as an actress, to satisfy people's expectations or image of who you should be. Even in your life, you are just who you are.
Viola Davis