Viola Davis
Personal Info
Known For
Acting
Known Credits
136
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
The Simpsons
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
Late Night with Seth Meyers
The Kelly Clarkson Show
The Graham Norton Show
Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Peacemaker
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Scandal
Without a Trace
The Practice
Golden Globe Awards
Golden Globe Awards
NYPD Blue
The Jennifer Hudson Show
Hot Ones
Tony Awards
The View
The View
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Kung Fu Panda 4
CBS News Sunday Morning
Third Watch
How to Get Away with Murder
60 Minutes
The Suicide Squad
Judging Amy
The Guardian
Variety Studio: Actors on Actors
Brothers and Sisters
Sofia the First
Ocean's Eleven
Black Adam
Providence
Prisoners
Close Up with The Hollywood Reporter
The Division
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
The Help
Law Abiding Citizen
Hot Ones Versus
The Woman King
Creature Commandos
The Oscars
Live in Front of a Studio Audience: "All in the Family" and "Good Times"
C ce soir, le débat
Suicide Squad
G20
Out of Sight
Trust
Knight and Day
Syriana
Threshold
Life Is Not a Fairytale: The Fantasia Barrino Story
Hack
Ender's Game
Live from E!
Love, Marilyn
The Unforgivable
Air
Blackhat
Custody
Eat Pray Love
Disturbia
The Andromeda Strain
United States of Tara
Kate & Leopold
Traffic
Nights in Rodanthe
Stone Cold
Get Rich or Die Tryin'
Dear...
State of Play
The First Lady
Troop Zero
Beyond Boundaries: The Harvey Weinstein Scandal
Solaris
Ally Clark
Amy & Isabelle
Celebrity IOU
Widows
Number One on the Call Sheet
Fences
Lila & Eve
Grace & Glorie
Beautiful Creatures
Giving Voice
The Architect
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her
World Trade Center
It's Kind of a Funny Story
Jesse Stone: Night Passage
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Antwone Fisher
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him
Far from Heaven
Jesse Stone: Sea Change
Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise
Doubt
Beyond All Boundaries
Get on Up
Madea Goes to Jail
Century City
City of Angels
Won't Back Down
The Pentagon Wars
The Best of The Tony Awards: The Plays
Traveler
Hallmark Hall of Fame
Children of Blood and Bone
The Substance of Fire
The Shrink Is In
The Ebony Canal: A Story of Black Infant Mortality
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them
Waller
Oprah + Viola: A Netflix Special Event
On Broadway
Small Great Things
Predator or Prey: Making The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Father Lefty
The Grammys
Miss Apprehension and Squirt
August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand
Doubt: Stage to Screen
Operation Othello
The Personal History of Rachel DuPree
House of Games
A Touch of Sugar
Two Butterflies
I Almost Forgot About You
