Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
If you're a boxer, you want to get the ring with a Mike Tyson or Muhammad Ali type. When you're acting, you want to get in with Meryl Streep, and that's what I did.
Viola Davis
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
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
Ring
Rings
Type
Streep
Acting
Boxer
Tyson
Boxers
Muhammad
Mike
More quotes by Viola Davis
Eating bread in Hollywood is a no-no!
Viola Davis
Anything can be achieved with a good, healthy dose of courage.
Viola Davis
I just look at women sometimes and I just want to ask them, Do you know how fabulous you are?
Viola Davis
I think sometimes you have to see a physical manifestation of your dream. Otherwise you have to hope, pray and try to conjure something in your mind to feel like it's possible.
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
I want to span different genres. I want to be able to transform. I want to be able to be sexy, and funny, and quirky, and all the other things that I am. And I feel that the best way that I can achieve that is by producing.
Viola Davis
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
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.
Viola Davis
It was hard, that confrontation scene [in Fences], that was a hard one. I felt like it was relentless, I never felt like I could just drop the ball when the coverage was on him or anything else.
Viola Davis
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
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.
Viola Davis
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
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
And I sit in my jacuzzi with my script.
Viola Davis
Cicely Tyson was my inspiration to become an actor.
Viola Davis
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
Your internal dialogue has got to be different from what you say. And, you know, in film, hopefully that registers and speaks volumes. It’s always the unspoken word and what’s happening behind someone’s eyes that makes it so rich.
Viola Davis
Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that's inside of you.
Viola Davis
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.
Viola Davis
There's a big difference in doing a play or doing any project that not a lot of people see and then a project that you know everyone will see. There is more pressure, performance anxiety per se. And then when you do and what you love is really put to test.
Viola Davis