110+ Viola Davis Quotes On Acting, Success And Business

Viola Davis is an American actress and producer. She is the first African American to win an Academy Award, Emmy Award and Tony Award in acting, and is known for her roles in films such as The Help, Fences and Widows. She has been praised for her powerful and emotionally honest performances in a variety of roles. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Viola Davis on life, acting, success.

Top 10 Viola Davis Quotes

1. They say the two most important days in a person's life were the day you were born and the day you discover why you were born.
2. You can't be hesitant about who you are.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. I want my work to reflect my level of gifts and talent
6. 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.
7. The only thing that separates women of color from everyone else is opportunity.
8. When you see what the deficit is, then you have to do something about it.
9. 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.
10. I think that you always want to gravitate towards people who absolutely are great at what they do and go for authenticity.

Viola Davis Short Quotes

• Anything can be achieved with a good, healthy dose of courage.
• I am not a glam woman - this definitely is a mask I put on for the public.
• Even when I get the fried-chicken special of the day, I have to dig into it like it's filet mignon.
• You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.
• I really wanted to show [in "fences"] a marriage that is working. Not perfect, but working.
• I have been given a lot of roles that are downtrodden, mammy-ish.
• I think sometimes what people miss about black people is that we're complicated.
• Denzel [Washington] just knows the actor. He knows the process, and you don't often get that.
• Self-deprecation is not an answer to keeping one's balance. I think that it's very damaging.
• Lloyd Richards is another director who was like that, who was a teacher.

Viola Davis Quotes About Life

I would love to be remembered as a person who used her life to inspire others in any way, shape or form. — Viola Davis

When you're really passionate, you're going to grab hold of every rope you see, and wrap them around your arms and legs to claw your way out. And that's the way I've felt in my life. — Viola Davis

In life, you know, they do this in focus groups; if you were in such and such circumstance, what would you do? Well, you never know what you're going do unless you're faced with it. — Viola Davis

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

Do not live someone else's life and someone else's idea of what womanhood is. Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that's inside of you. — Viola Davis

Creativity only resonates if you infuse real life into the work. — Viola Davis

I had several teachers who inspired me, in both the public school system and the Upward Bound program. I needed several, because I lived in such abject poverty and dysfunction. And they're still in my life today, because I consider them to be friends, actually. — Viola Davis

When you pray, God puts people in your life to lead you when you cannot lead yourself. — Viola Davis

Viola Davis Quotes About Acting

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. — Viola Davis

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

That's why there's so much bad acting out there, because you could see actors watching themselves. — Viola Davis

I've been to acting school and I think that at the end of the day, when you just focus on the work and you're comfortable with who you are, that at some point someone's going to recognize your talent and give you an opportunity. — Viola Davis

I don't think most people understand acting, even the people who call themselves savvy, even actors. — Viola Davis

It's always hard to be private in public, which is what acting is because you have to do thing really emotionally naked. — Viola Davis

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

Viola Davis Quotes About Opportunity

It's not anything that is just perpetuated by White America or just perpetuated by Black America. It's just a cultural understanding that you're just not a part of the equation when it comes to sexuality and I think that people mistake your lack of opportunity with the level of your talent. — Viola Davis

I am not a writer, but I feel that when our production company is successful, we'll be able to give some young writers with fresh voices an opportunity to put their work out there. — Viola Davis

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

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. — Viola Davis

Viola Davis Quotes About People

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

And this is what was fascinating to me about 'The Help'; they were ordinary people who did extraordinary things. — Viola Davis

One of the people I've always wanted to emulate in pursuing that dream was Meryl Streep, in terms of the different types of roles she's been able to play and the number of different stories she's been able to tell. — Viola Davis

People are just not impressed by me at home. — 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

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

Can I just tell you, I think it's the most beautiful thing about young people today, it gives me so much hope for the future, that they don't really recognize race the way my generation does. — Viola Davis

Actor is just a strange profession, it really is, that you could be in front of the same people for years, and all of a sudden one thing happens, and it finally clicks. — Viola Davis

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

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

Viola Davis Quotes About Love

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 would love to star in a remake of Thelma and Louise. Yep, that's the one I'd be interested in redoing. — Viola Davis

I have a lot of spiritual books that I read that I really, really love - everything from the Bible to Joseph Campbell, who I love. He wrote The Hero of a Thousand Faces. It's about exploring what is heroic in you. It helps me a lot. — Viola Davis

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. — Viola Davis

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

I love Wal-Mart. You can put that down. I love Wal-Mart. My husband and I hang out there. — Viola Davis

I had to invest in the love and understand that with the love comes the pain. So when he tells me that, the monologue is already there. Does that make sense? — Viola Davis

Viola Davis Quotes About School

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

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

The sentiment that I had a little trouble with was the idea that, "You change the school, you change the community." I couldn't wrap my mind around that. — Viola Davis

Viola Davis Famous Quotes And Sayings

Tyler Perry's 'Madea Goes to Jail!' Which, I have to tell you, of everything that I've ever done in my career, that's the only thing that's perked up the ears of my nieces and nephews. That is it, that's done it for them. That made me a bona fide star in their eyes! — 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

As an artist, you've got to see the mess. That's what we do. We get a human being, and it's like putting together a puzzle. And the puzzle has got to be a mixture, a multifaceted mixture of human emotions, and not all of it is going to be pretty. — Viola Davis

But the biggest beauty advice I've given my daughter is every morning I say, "Genesis, what are the two best parts of you?" And she says "my brain and my heart." And I say, "You've gotta remember that, Genesis. You've gotta remember that you're not what you look like," you know? I think that's the best beauty advice I could give her. — Viola Davis

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

[I listen to] "Uptown Funk", Bruno Mars, sometimes even Nina Simone and Adele. Whatever comes up, whatever floats my boat, whatever makes me tap into something in me to just decompress - I listen to that. — 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

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

I guess they say, "Necessity is the mother of invention" because you have two stark choices when you find yourself in a really desperate situation. You can either fold and cave-in to it or you can become really passionate about getting out of it. — Viola Davis

I didn't see myself any different from my white counterparts in school. I just didn't! I thought I could do what they did. And what I didn't do well, I thought people were going to give me the opportunity to do well, because maybe they saw my talent, so they would give me a chance. I had no idea that they would see me completely different. — Viola Davis

I'm a sitting duck. No, seriously, I mean I wish I could say more, but I'm a sitting duck because I can't get ahead of them [cyber experts]. They're far ahead of me. That's what I learned: how vulnerable we are. It's a big, silent monster out there. That's what it feels like. — Viola Davis

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

That is a huge need for a lot of women, even in 2016. You can have the most ambitious career woman, and at the end of the day, she's like, 'I just want to be a mom. — Viola Davis

But along with all of that it was, "Oh, isn't he a great storyteller? Oh, it's that why I married him? Isn't he handsome? Oh, what am I going to make for dinner today?" I put all of that as a part of [Roses's from "Fences"] inner everyday monologue so, by the time he tells he that news and all of that I feel that it's there already. — Viola Davis

I worked in television; I'm the Failed Pilot Queen, I've done so many television shows, pilots, theater ... when you do it for so long, I'm telling you, you get to the point where it becomes varied because you take what's available for a number of reasons. It's just an occupational hazard. — Viola Davis

I’m a black woman who is from Central Falls, Rhode Island. I’m dark skinned. I’m quirky. I’m shy. I’m strong. I’m guarded. I’m weak at times. I’m sensual. I’m not overtly sexual. I am so many things in so many ways and I will never see myself on screen. And the reason I will never see myself up on screen is because that does not translate with being black. — 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

When Denzel [Washington] first called me on the phone after we'd just done a reading of the film ["Fences"]. He said, "Oh Viola it was so good, wasn't it?! I'm gonna tell Russell [Hornsby] to lose a little bit of weight and..." I was just sitting there thinking, why is he calling me? And I told him, "Denzel don't you tell me to lose weight!" He said, "I'm not telling you to lose weight! I can't believe you would say that." — Viola Davis

I am not a morning person, but I always work out - always. — Viola Davis

I've been online doing all kinds of research and that seems to be the constant criticism, that Aibileen's accent was just too thick. And for me, I don't want anything to distract from the character. — Viola Davis

The internal sexism within womanhood is very ­predominant in Hollywood, because we all want to be ­successful. There's a plug to it: You all have to be skinny! You all have to be pretty! You all have to be likable, because that's the ­formula that works. On an ­executive level. On a power level. And it's not always the same working with black people, because of the internalized racism. The colorism. — Viola Davis

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

Obviously, ["Fences"] is a character-driven piece in every sense of the word, and Denzel [Washington] knows the actor. He gave us two weeks of rehearsal. He is a truth teller, and he is a truth seer. So he knows when something is not going in the right direction, and he will call you on it. But, he knows the word to use to unlock whatever is blocking you. So I think he's fabulous and he's a teacher. — Viola Davis

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

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. — Viola Davis

We as artists cannot be politicians. We as artists can only be truth-tellers. — Viola Davis

When I go home, I am a slug. I want to do everything completely opposite of what I do on the red carpet. I like to take off all my makeup, put on a t-shirt, be completely unassuming and just do stuff with my husband and my daughter. — Viola Davis

We know the road of lack of recognition, of people telling us that we can't headline a movie because black women don't translate overseas, that every time we try to break the glass ceiling, people say no, people push back. And it's everything that people don't see out there. — Viola Davis

I did want to mark the fact that it was the first African-American to win the Lead Actress category.I thought it was so progressive. — Viola Davis

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

I love young adult fantasies. While I say that, I have not seen all of the Twilight and Harry Potter movies. But I've read all of the books, and I love them. I love them because I enjoy being transported to a different world and having my imagination challenged. That's a huge part of what we do as actors. We have to imagine ourselves in a different world. And when you are in a young adult fantasy, it challenges you in the best way. — Viola Davis

I think watching my mom gave me great inspiration, I wish that had been reinforced more verbally. It would have kept me from a lot of pain. — Viola Davis

You have two stark choices when you find yourself in a really desperate situation. You can either fold and cave-in to it or you can become really passionate about getting out of it. When you're really passionate, you're going to grab hold of every rope you see, and wrap them around your arms and legs to claw your way out. And that's the way I've felt in my life. — Viola Davis

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

I talk to women all the time and try to impart wisdom. — Viola Davis

I just hope this [Emmy] is now a part of the status quo that women of color are included in the narratives that continue to write lead roles for us. — Viola Davis

It's harder to work with people who are not as dedicated to their craft. It also leaves you a better actor when you finish the project, since you always feel like you've learned something. — Viola Davis

Each role has its own different challenges. — Viola Davis

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

You see all the young girls, and they're so skinny. I actually don't even twirl anymore. They say, "Twirl, let us see your back." I just tell 'em, "I do not twirl. If you want to see my back, when I walk away, you can take a picture of it. I'm not twirling." You know, I twirled once, and I almost fell. It looks ridiculous. So I said I'm not twirling anymore. — Viola Davis

That's why I do what I do, and that's why I wanted to be an actress from the time I was six years old. If I can't effectively move people, then I would prefer not to do it. — Viola Davis

Eating bread in Hollywood is a no-no! — Viola Davis

I am the mother of a 6-year-old now, so that's changed my entire perspective. — Viola Davis

I heard about the book and I said, 'Oh my god, I've got to read this book,' and I didn't know that a white woman wrote it. Nobody said that to me, they just said, 'The Help - Oh my god, you've got to read it.' Everyone failed to mention it was a white woman, I think, because nobody really wants to talk about race. — Viola Davis

It feels really good to embrace exactly who I am and be my sexy, to be my sexualized, to be my woman. — Viola Davis

And I sit in my jacuzzi with my script. — Viola Davis

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

I sort of feel like that's the most revolutionary thing we can do with our narrative for me as Black people is to show that we are just like you. — Viola Davis

I've been in this business 25 years. I've been eking out a living doing Broadway, off-Broadway... I've seen the unemployment line a lot. — Viola Davis

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

I think at the end of the day she [Rose from "Fences"] is a strong woman in the truest sense of the word. I think all of that is in the narrative; it's already there. The hope is there; the playfulness is there; it's there. I wish I could take credit for it, but it's there. — 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

You don't get the pay-off when you're playing a quiet character, so sometimes you want to just throw out all your work and say, "Okay, let me do something really funny or gimmicky, just so that I can get some attention in this scene." — Viola Davis

You cannot live to please everyone else. You have to edify, educate and fulfill your own dreams and destiny. — Viola Davis

Relationships change us and make us grow. — Viola Davis

Cicely Tyson was my inspiration to become an actor. — Viola Davis

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. — Viola Davis

It made me realize again how complicated being a mother is. You have 50 million heartbreaking moments, and 100 million beautiful, joyous ones. — Viola Davis

I started a production company out of necessity, the need for great narratives for actors of color. — Viola Davis

When you shoot a scene, you remember every moment. You remember when your head went down, your head went up. You don't see little quirks, little eye movements, little lip movements. Once again, you become completely vain when you're watching it in a way that you weren't when you were shooting it. And the vanity, what it makes you focus on are everything that has nothing to do with the scene and everything to do with your own ego. — Viola Davis

I have to say, doing theater, that's what you're trained to do. Doing film, when I first started doing it, felt like something else entirely. It felt like the difference between, I don't know, waiting tables and painting a great work of art. It's night and day. I didn't feel like it was even acting. — Viola Davis

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

Knowing the only way out is education, even if you don't have parents that are extraordinarily wealthy. I understand that I have to be an active participant in [my daughter's] education in order for her to thrive in the world. — Viola Davis

Well, first of all, you read the script a million times. Because what the script gives you are given circumstances. Given circumstances are all the facts of your character. — Viola Davis

Life Lessons by Viola Davis

1. Viola Davis is a great example of how hard work and dedication can lead to success. She has worked her way up from humble beginnings to become one of the most respected and acclaimed actresses in the world.
2. Viola Davis is also an inspiration for aspiring actors, showing that it is possible to make it in the entertainment industry regardless of race or gender.
3. Finally, Viola Davis is a great example of the power of resilience and determination, having overcome numerous obstacles to achieve her goals.