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Do the work. Create the character, don't wing it and don't hope for an award or the Red Carpet. At the end of day the people who stay in the line the longest are the people who are good.

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
Work
Wings
Good
Line
People
Stay
Longest
Create
Award
Lines
Carpet
Hope
Wing
Ends
Awards
Character
Red

More quotes by Viola Davis

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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.
Viola Davis
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To me, it's always a luxury to be able to work with the best of the best because they make it easier for you to do what you do.
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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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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I've always seen myself for who I am, which is a lot of things.
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.
Viola Davis
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I look back at pictures of myself and I remember thinking, I was so fat when I was growing up. I was 165 pounds when I graduated from high school. I was a mess.
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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Denzel [Washington] just knows the actor. He knows the process, and you don't often get that.
Viola Davis
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I think that I'm coming off as the biggest alcoholic in the world.
Viola Davis
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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.
Viola Davis
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Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that's inside of you.
Viola Davis
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I've done a really bad job with teaching daughter to put on makeup, but I have taught her how to put on lipstick.
Viola Davis
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If the opportunity is not out there for you to play it, then you don't see it.
Viola Davis
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I have been given a lot of roles that are downtrodden, mammy-ish.
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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I already optioned a book called The Personal History of Rachel DuPree. I also like The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. And I love all of Octavia Butler's books. She's created some very complicated black heroines with a variety of belief systems. There are many great books out there, but those are a few of the ones that stand out.
Viola Davis
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Sometimes you take a job for the money, sometimes you take it for the location, sometimes you take it for the script there are just a number of reasons, and ultimately what you see is the whole landscape of it. But I can tell you from behind the scenes - that's what it is, as an actor.
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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I think that's why August [Wilson] named her Rose [in Fences] I really do. She's a rose in her sweetness and her kindness and in everything else, even her anger towards the end.
Viola Davis