Viola Davis Quotes

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.

[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.

The only thing that separates women of color from everyone else is opportunity.

I think sometimes what people miss about black people is that we're complicated.

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.

If the opportunity is not out there for you to play it, then you don't see it.

You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.

Ordinary people who are just kind of just going about their lives are transformed into heroes because they have the courage to put their voices out there. And I think that's a powerful message in this time of political strife.

I think that I'm coming off as the biggest alcoholic in the world.

We grew up in abject poverty. Acting, writing scripts and skits were a way of escaping our environment at a very young age.

Even when I go shopping, I don't shop as a woman. The only time I shop is when I need something, and I'm in and out in less than 30 minutes, so I have no energy to look at 50 million gowns and styles and make sketches and think about heels. I'm not girly in that way. I'm relying on the stylist to do 99 percent of the work.

It's time for people to see us, people of colour, for what we really are: complicated.

It would be great to bust through and make history. But what's more important is the opportunity to continue to get roles that are complicated and wonderful, to be a part of the narrative and to get to do what our counterparts are able to do. It doesn't just stop at holding an award.

People often forget our emotional contribution to relationships and to marriage and that might be a completely sexist comment but, what I tried not to do [in "Fences"] is, I tried to just put that monologue as part of my stream of consciousness.

Cicely Tyson was my inspiration to become an actor.

I came back from vacation and I ate everything. I mean I'm sipping cocktails by the pool, thinking I'm a size 2. And now, you know, my dress is tight. So, I need it, too. I always need to remind myself: It's okay.

Lloyd Richards is another director who was like that, who was a teacher.

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.

I really want my acting to be definitive a lot of times, but I must feel like in any given moment there is a lot of things going on with Rose. I kept telling Denzel [Washington] throughout filming [Fences] that the house is her joy and her tomb.

Denzel [Washington] just knows the actor. He knows the process, and you don't often get that.

My husband [Julius Tennon] and I started a production company. We've already optioned a book and some scripts to do exactly that, to create more complicated, multi-faceted roles for African-Americans, especially African-American females. I think it's important.

I don't have any time to stay up all night worrying about what someone who doesn't love me has to say about me.

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.

I can't deal with actors! I can't deal with myself. We're neurotic and miserable... I love doing what I'm doing, but while I'm doing it, I'm miserable.

They say, 'To serve is to love,' and I think to serve is to heal, too.

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.

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.

Let me tell you something: The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.