Viola Davis
Personal Info
Known For
Acting
Known Credits
135
Gender
Female
Birthday
1965-08-11 (60 years old)
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.
Known For
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Peacemaker
The Simpsons
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
The Graham Norton Show
The Kelly Clarkson Show
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen
Without a Trace
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
The Jennifer Hudson Show
Tony Awards
CBS News Sunday Morning
Scandal
Golden Globe Awards
Golden Globe Awards
The Practice
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
NYPD Blue
Kung Fu Panda 4
The View
The View
How to Get Away with Murder
Judging Amy
60 Minutes
Variety Studio: Actors on Actors
Hot Ones
Third Watch
The Suicide Squad
The Guardian
Prisoners
Brothers and Sisters
Close Up with The Hollywood Reporter
Creature Commandos
Sofia the First
Providence
The Division
The Help
Hack
Ocean's Eleven
The Oscars
G20
Celebrity IOU
Black Adam
Air
Suicide Squad
Law Abiding Citizen
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
C ce soir, le débat
Hot Ones Versus
The Woman King
Knight and Day
Traffic
The Unforgivable
Nights in Rodanthe
Blackhat
It's Kind of a Funny Story
Jesse Stone: Sea Change
Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise
United States of Tara
Beautiful Creatures
Life Is Not a Fairytale: The Fantasia Barrino Story
Disturbia
Number One on the Call Sheet
Trust
Get Rich or Die Tryin'
The Pentagon Wars
Far from Heaven
City of Angels
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
The Substance of Fire
Solaris
E! Live from the Red Carpet
The First Lady
Jesse Stone: Night Passage
Syriana
Widows
Giving Voice
Ender's Game
Eat Pray Love
Threshold
Kate & Leopold
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him
Beyond Boundaries: The Harvey Weinstein Scandal
The Andromeda Strain
Love, Marilyn
Fences
Dear...
World Trade Center
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them
Traveler
The Ebony Canal: A Story of Black Infant Mortality
Get on Up
Custody
Troop Zero
State of Play
Ally Clark
Out of Sight
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her
Children of Blood and Bone
Century City
Madea Goes to Jail
Hallmark Hall of Fame
Stone Cold
Antwone Fisher
Doubt
The Architect
Lila & Eve
Grace & Glorie
Amy & Isabelle
The Best of The Tony Awards: The Plays
Won't Back Down
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Small Great Things
Beyond All Boundaries
Waller
The Shrink Is In
Father Lefty
August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand
Predator or Prey: Making The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
The Grammys
Oprah + Viola: A Netflix Special Event
Live in Front of a Studio Audience: "All in the Family" and "Good Times"
Doubt: Stage to Screen
Operation Othello
On Broadway
Miss Apprehension and Squirt
The Personal History of Rachel DuPree
House of Games
Two Butterflies
I Almost Forgot About You
A Touch of Sugar
