Viola Davis
Personal Info
Known For
Acting
Gender
Female
Birthday
1965-08-11
Place of Birth
St. Matthews, South Carolina, USA
Viola Davis
Biography
Viola Davis (/vaɪˈoʊlə/ vy-OH-lə; born August 11, 1965) is an American actress and film producer. Her accolades include both the Triple Crown of Acting and EGOT. Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012 and 2017. The New York Times ranked her ninth on its list of the greatest actors of the 21st century (2020). Davis received the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2025. A graduate of Juilliard, Davis began her career in Central Falls, Rhode Island, appearing in small stage productions. She made her Broadway debut in the August Wilson play Seven Guitars (1996) for which she earned her first Tony nomination. She would later win two Tony Awards, both for Wilson plays. Her first win was for Best Featured Actress in a Play playing the titular character Tonya, a woman grappling with trauma and loss in King Hedley II (2001), followed by her second win for Best Actress in a Play playing Rose Maxson, a working class mother in Fences (2010). She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for reprising her role in the 2016 film adaptation of Fences. She was Oscar-nominated for playing a complex mother in Doubt (2008), a 1960s housemaid in The Help (2011) and Ma Rainey in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020). On television, she became the first black actress to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her role as lawyer Annalise Keating in the ABC legal drama series How to Get Away with Murder (2014–2020). Davis joined the DCEU playing Amanda Waller starting with Suicide Squad (2016). She has also starred in the crime drama Widows(2018), and historical action film The Woman King (2022). Davis and her husband are founders of the production company JuVee Productions, and she is also widely recognized for her advocacy and support for human rights and women of color. She became a L'Oréal Paris ambassador in 2019. The audiobook narration of her 2022 memoir Finding Me won her the Grammy Award for Best Audio Book, Narration & Storytelling Recording. Description above from the Wikipedia article Viola Davis, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Also Known For
Doubt: Stage to Screen
Apr 07, 2009
Solaris
Nov 27, 2002
Operation Othello
Get Rich or Die Tryin'
Nov 09, 2005
World Trade Center
Aug 09, 2006
Far from Heaven
Nov 08, 2002
Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise
Apr 30, 2006
Law Abiding Citizen
Oct 15, 2009
Stone Cold
Feb 20, 2005
Jesse Stone: Night Passage
Jan 15, 2006
Disturbia
Mar 27, 2007
The Pentagon Wars
Feb 28, 1998
Nights in Rodanthe
Sep 26, 2008
Doubt
Dec 12, 2008
Madea Goes to Jail
Feb 20, 2009
Knight and Day
Jun 15, 2010
Eat Pray Love
Aug 12, 2010
Trust
Sep 10, 2010
State of Play
Apr 17, 2009
The Shrink Is In
Aug 01, 2001
Ender's Game
Oct 24, 2013
The Help
Aug 09, 2011
Two Butterflies
Won't Back Down
Sep 28, 2012
On Broadway
Oct 12, 2019
Love, Marilyn
May 30, 2013
Amy & Isabelle
Mar 04, 2001
Beautiful Creatures
Feb 13, 2013
Prisoners
Sep 19, 2013
Oprah + Viola: A Netflix Special Event
Apr 22, 2022
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them
May 14, 2014
I Almost Forgot About You
Blackhat
Jan 13, 2015
The Substance of Fire
Sep 11, 1996
Get on Up
Aug 01, 2014
Air
Apr 05, 2023
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her
Oct 10, 2014
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Dec 25, 2011
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him
Oct 10, 2014
Black Adam
Oct 19, 2022
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Nov 15, 2023
Kung Fu Panda 4
Mar 02, 2024
Suicide Squad
Aug 03, 2016
Lila & Eve
Jul 31, 2015
G20
Apr 10, 2025
The Architect
Dec 01, 2006
Predator or Prey: Making The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Feb 13, 2024
It's Kind of a Funny Story
Oct 08, 2010
Miss Apprehension and Squirt
Jan 01, 1998
Giving Voice
Jan 26, 2020
Ocean's Eleven
Dec 07, 2001
Touch of Evil
Dec 06, 2011
Jesse Stone: Sea Change
May 22, 2007
Custody
Apr 17, 2016
Fences
Dec 16, 2016
Kate & Leopold
Dec 25, 2001
August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand
Feb 20, 2015
Out of Sight
Jun 26, 1998
Antwone Fisher
Dec 19, 2002
Traffic
Dec 27, 2000
Small Great Things
The Personal History of Rachel DuPree
Syriana
Nov 23, 2005
Widows
Nov 06, 2018
Troop Zero
Feb 01, 2019
Beyond All Boundaries
Nov 09, 2009
Beyond Boundaries: The Harvey Weinstein Scandal
Aug 21, 2018
The Best of The Tony Awards: The Plays
May 02, 2006
The Suicide Squad
Jul 28, 2021
Life Is Not a Fairytale: The Fantasia Barrino Story
Aug 19, 2006
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Nov 25, 2020
The Unforgivable
Nov 24, 2021
Live in Front of a Studio Audience: "All in the Family" and "Good Times"
Dec 18, 2019
A Touch of Sugar
Apr 24, 2019
The Woman King
Sep 16, 2022
Grace & Glorie
Dec 13, 1998
Children of Blood and Bone
Jan 15, 2027
The Ebony Canal: A Story of Black Infant Mortality
Feb 13, 2025
Ally Clark
House of Games
Third Watch
Sep 23, 1999
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Oct 06, 2000
Threshold
Sep 16, 2005
The Division
Jan 07, 2001
Providence
Jan 08, 1999
Judging Amy
Sep 19, 1999
Traveler
May 10, 2007
Without a Trace
Sep 26, 2002
NYPD Blue
Sep 21, 1993
The Practice
Mar 04, 1997
60 Minutes
Sep 24, 1968
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Sep 08, 2015
Century City
Mar 16, 2004
Hallmark Hall of Fame
Dec 24, 1951
United States of Tara
Jan 18, 2009
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Sep 30, 2001
City of Angels
Jan 16, 2000
The Andromeda Strain
May 26, 2008
E! Live from the Red Carpet
Jan 13, 2002
The Oscars
Mar 19, 1953
How to Get Away with Murder
Sep 25, 2014
Tony Awards
Apr 01, 1956
C ce soir, le débat
Jan 25, 2021
Brothers and Sisters
Sep 24, 2006
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Jan 26, 2003
Peacemaker
Jan 13, 2022
Dear...
Jun 05, 2020
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Sep 08, 2015
Waller
The View
Aug 11, 1997
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
Feb 17, 2014
The Jennifer Hudson Show
Sep 12, 2022
Close Up with The Hollywood Reporter
Aug 02, 2015
Variety Studio: Actors on Actors
Dec 21, 2014
The View
Aug 11, 1997
Honest Trailers
Feb 13, 2012
Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen
Jul 16, 2009
Scandal
Apr 05, 2012
Hot Ones
Mar 12, 2015
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
Feb 17, 2014
Hack
Sep 27, 2002
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Sep 20, 1999
Celebrity IOU
Apr 13, 2020
The First Lady
Apr 17, 2022
The Graham Norton Show
Feb 22, 2007
Father Lefty
CBS News Sunday Morning
Jan 28, 1979
Creature Commandos
Dec 05, 2024
Sofia the First
Jan 11, 2013
Number One on the Call Sheet
Mar 27, 2025
The Kelly Clarkson Show
Sep 09, 2019
Hot Ones Versus
Jan 31, 2024
The Grammys
Nov 29, 1959
Golden Globe Awards
Jan 20, 1944
Golden Globe Awards
Jan 20, 1944
