1965-08-11 St. Matthews, South Carolina, USA
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.
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Children of Blood and Bone | Mama Agba | 2027-01-14 |
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W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel With a Cause | Narrator (voice) | 2026-05-19 |
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The Ebony Canal: A Story of Black Infant Mortality | Narration | 2025-02-13 |
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G20 | President Danielle Sutton | 2025-04-10 |
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Kung Fu Panda 4 | The Chameleon (voice) | 2024-03-02 |
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Predator or Prey: Making The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes | Self (Dr. Volumnia Gaul) | 2024-02-13 |
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Air | Deloris Jordan | 2023-04-05 |
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The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes | Dr. Volumnia Gaul | 2023-11-15 |
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Black Adam | Amanda Waller (uncredited) | 2022-10-19 |
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Oprah + Viola: A Netflix Special Event | Self | 2022-04-22 |
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The Woman King | Nanisca | 2022-09-16 |
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Food 2050 | Self - Narrator (voice) | 2022-11-07 |
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The Suicide Squad | Amanda Waller | 2021-07-28 |
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The Unforgivable | Liz Ingram | 2021-11-24 |
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Giving Voice | Self | 2020-01-26 |
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Ma Rainey's Black Bottom | Ma Rainey | 2020-11-25 |
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Troop Zero | Miss Rayleen | 2019-02-01 |
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Operation Othello | Narrator | 2019-05-14 |
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On Broadway | Self (archive footage) | 2019-10-12 |
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Live in Front of a Studio Audience: "All in the Family" and "Good Times" | Florida Evans | 2019-12-18 |
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A Touch of Sugar | Narrator | 2019-04-24 |
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Widows | Veronica Rawlings | 2018-11-06 |
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Beyond Boundaries: The Harvey Weinstein Scandal | Self (archive footage) | 2018-08-21 |
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Suicide Squad | Amanda Waller | 2016-08-03 |
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Custody | Martha Schulman | 2016-04-17 |
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Fences | Rose Maxson | 2016-12-16 |
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Blackhat | Carol Barrett | 2015-01-13 |
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Lila & Eve | Lila Walcott | 2015-07-31 |
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August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand | Self | 2015-02-20 |
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The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him | Professor Lillian Friedman | 2014-10-10 |
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The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her | Professor Lillian Friedman | 2014-10-10 |
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Get On Up | Susie Brown | 2014-08-01 |
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The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them | Professor Lillian Friedman | 2014-05-14 |
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Ender's Game | Major Gwen Anderson | 2013-10-24 |
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Love, Marilyn | Self | 2013-05-30 |
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Beautiful Creatures | Amma Treadeau | 2013-02-13 |
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Prisoners | Nancy Birch | 2013-09-19 |
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Won't Back Down | Nona Alberts | 2012-09-28 |
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The Help | Aibileen Clark | 2011-08-09 |
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Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close | Abby Black | 2011-12-25 |
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Knight and Day | CIA Director Isabel George | 2010-06-15 |
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Eat Pray Love | Delia Shiraz | 2010-08-12 |
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Trust | Gail Friedman | 2010-09-10 |
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It's Kind of a Funny Story | Dr. Eden Minerva | 2010-10-08 |
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Doubt: Stage to Screen | Self | 2009-04-07 |
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Law Abiding Citizen | Mayor April Henry | 2009-10-15 |
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Beyond All Boundaries | Hortense Johnson | 2009-11-09 |
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State of Play | Dr. Judith Franklin | 2009-04-17 |
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Madea Goes to Jail | Ellen | 2009-02-20 |
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Doubt | Mrs. Miller | 2008-12-12 |
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Nights in Rodanthe | Jean | 2008-09-26 |
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Disturbia | Detective Parker | 2007-03-27 |
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Jesse Stone: Sea Change | Molly Crane | 2007-05-22 |
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The Best of The Tony Awards: The Plays | Tonya (segment "King Hedley II") | 2006-05-02 |
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The Architect | Tonya Neely | 2006-12-01 |
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Jesse Stone: Night Passage | Officer Molly Crane | 2006-01-15 |
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Life Is Not a Fairytale: The Fantasia Barrino Story | Diane Barrino | 2006-08-19 |
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World Trade Center | Mother in Hospital | 2006-08-09 |
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Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise | Molly Crane | 2006-04-30 |
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Syriana | CIA Chairwoman | 2005-11-23 |
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Get Rich or Die Tryin' | Grandma | 2005-11-09 |
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Stone Cold | Molly Crane | 2005-02-20 |
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Solaris | Gordon | 2002-11-27 |
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Far from Heaven | Sybil | 2002-11-08 |
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Antwone Fisher | Eva May | 2002-12-19 |
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Kate & Leopold | Policewoman | 2001-12-25 |
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The Shrink Is In | Robin | 2001-08-01 |
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Amy & Isabelle | Dottie | 2001-03-04 |
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Ocean's Eleven | Parole Board Interrogator (voice) (uncredited) | 2001-12-07 |
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Traffic | Social Worker | 2000-12-27 |
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Miss Apprehension and Squirt | Sharon Hughes | 1998-01-01 |
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Out of Sight | Moselle | 1998-06-26 |
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The Pentagon Wars | Sgt. Fanning | 1998-02-28 |
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Grace & Glorie | Rosemary Allbright | 1998-12-13 |
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The Substance of Fire | Nurse | 1996-09-11 |
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The Personal History of Rachel DuPree | Rachel Dupree | |
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Small Great Things | ||
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House of Games | ||
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Ally Clark | Ally Clark | |
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Two Butterflies | ||
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I Almost Forgot About You | Dr. Georgia Young |
