Known For
Acting
Born
Aug 11, 1965
Place of Birth
St. Matthews, South Carolina, USA
Credits
151 titles
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
Filmography
Children of Blood and Bone
Mama Agba
W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel With a Cause
Narrator (voice)
ASALI: Power of the Pollinators
Executive Producer
G20
President Danielle Sutton
Number One on the Call Sheet
Self
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
The Ebony Canal: A Story of Black Infant Mortality
Narration
Creature Commandos
Amanda Waller (voice)
Hollywood Black
Self (archive footage)
Kung Fu Panda 4
The Chameleon (voice)
Predator or Prey: Making The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Self (Dr. Volumnia Gaul)
Hot Ones Versus
Self
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Dr. Volumnia Gaul
Silver Dollar Road
Executive Producer
Air
Deloris Jordan
Food 2050
Self - Narrator (voice)
Black Adam
Amanda Waller (uncredited)
The Woman King
Nanisca
The Jennifer Hudson Show
Self
Oprah + Viola: A Netflix Special Event
Self
The First Lady
Michelle Obama
Peacemaker
Amanda Waller (uncredited)
The Unforgivable
Liz Ingram
The Suicide Squad
Amanda Waller
C ce soir, le débat
Self - Guest
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Ma Rainey
Dear...
Self
Celebrity IOU
Self
Giving Voice
Self
Live in Front of a Studio Audience: "All in the Family" and "Good Times"
Florida Evans
On Broadway
Self (archive footage)
In a Man's World
Executive Producer
The Kelly Clarkson Show
Self
Emanuel
Executive Producer
Operation Othello
Narrator
A Touch of Sugar
Narrator
Troop Zero
Miss Rayleen
Widows
Veronica Rawlings
Beyond Boundaries: The Harvey Weinstein Scandal
Self (archive footage)
The Last Defense
Executive Producer
Night Shift
Executive Producer
Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds
Self (uncredited)
Fences
Rose Maxson
Suicide Squad
Amanda Waller
Custody
Martha Schulman
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Self
Close Up with The Hollywood Reporter
Self
Lila & Eve
Lila Walcott
Hot Ones
Self
August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand
Self