Viola Davis
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,
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.
Born
Aug 11, 1965
St. Matthews, South Carolina, USA
Known For
Acting
Movies
83 acting
14 crew
Popularity
3.6
Known For
The Suicide Squad
2021
as Amanda Waller
Black Adam
2022
as Amanda Waller (uncredited)
Kung Fu Panda 4
2024
as The Chameleon (voice)
Ocean's Eleven
2001
as Parole Board Interrogator (voice) (uncredited)
Prisoners
2013
as Nancy Birch
Law Abiding Citizen
2009
as Mayor April Henry
Suicide Squad
2016
as Amanda Waller
The Help
2011
as Aibileen Clark
Air
2023
as Deloris Jordan
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
2023
as Dr. Volumnia Gaul
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