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.
Known For
Self
Doubt: Stage to Screen
Gordon
Solaris
Narrator
Operation Othello
Grandma
Get Rich or Die Tryin'
Mother in Hospital
World Trade Center
Sybil
Far from Heaven
Molly Crane
Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise
Mayor April Henry
Law Abiding Citizen
Molly Crane
Stone Cold
Officer Molly Crane
Jesse Stone: Night Passage
Detective Parker
Disturbia
Sgt. Fanning
The Pentagon Wars
Jean
Nights in Rodanthe
Mrs. Miller
Doubt
Ellen
Madea Goes to Jail
CIA Director Isabel George
Knight and Day
Delia Shiraz
Eat Pray Love
Gail Friedman
Trust
Dr. Judith Franklin
State of Play
Robin
The Shrink Is In
Major Gwen Anderson
Ender's Game
Aibileen Clark
The Help
Two Butterflies
Nona Alberts
Won't Back Down
Self (archive footage)
On Broadway
Self
Love, Marilyn
Dottie
Amy & Isabelle
Amma Treadeau
Beautiful Creatures
Nancy Birch
Prisoners
Self
Oprah + Viola: A Netflix Special Event
Professor Lillian Friedman
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them
Dr. Georgia Young
I Almost Forgot About You
Carol Barrett
Blackhat
Nurse
The Substance of Fire
Susie Brown
Get on Up
Deloris Jordan
Air
Professor Lillian Friedman
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her
Abby Black
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Professor Lillian Friedman
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him
Amanda Waller (uncredited)
Black Adam
Dr. Volumnia Gaul
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
The Chameleon (voice)
Kung Fu Panda 4
Amanda Waller
Suicide Squad
Lila Walcott
Lila & Eve
President Danielle Sutton
G20
Tonya Neely
The Architect
Self (Dr. Volumnia Gaul)
Predator or Prey: Making The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Dr. Eden Minerva
It's Kind of a Funny Story
Sharon Hughes
Miss Apprehension and Squirt
Self
Giving Voice
Parole Board Interrogator (voice) (uncredited)
Ocean's Eleven
Molly Crane
Jesse Stone: Sea Change
Martha Schulman
Custody
Rose Maxson
Fences
Policewoman
Kate & Leopold
Self
August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand
Moselle
Out of Sight
Eva May
Antwone Fisher
Social Worker
Traffic
Small Great Things
Rachel Dupree
The Personal History of Rachel DuPree
CIA Chairwoman
Syriana
Veronica Rawlings
Widows
Miss Rayleen
Troop Zero
Hortense Johnson
Beyond All Boundaries
Self (archive footage)
Beyond Boundaries: The Harvey Weinstein Scandal
Tonya (segment "King Hedley II")
The Best of The Tony Awards: The Plays
Amanda Waller
The Suicide Squad
Diane Barrino
Life Is Not a Fairytale: The Fantasia Barrino Story
Ma Rainey
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Liz Ingram
The Unforgivable
Florida Evans
Live in Front of a Studio Audience: "All in the Family" and "Good Times"
Narrator
A Touch of Sugar
Nanisca
The Woman King
Rosemary Allbright
Grace & Glorie
Mama Agba
Children of Blood and Bone
Narration
The Ebony Canal: A Story of Black Infant Mortality
Ally Clark
Ally Clark
House of Games
Narrator (voice)
Treehouse of Horror XXXVI
Personal Info
Known For
Acting
Known Credits
80
Gender
Female
Birthday
1965-08-11
Place of Birth
St. Matthews, South Carolina, USA
Also Known As
바이올라 데이비스