Person

Viola Davis

Acting 61 August 11, 1965

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 on…

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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.

Filmography

Movies and shows, newest first

2027
Children of Blood and Bone
Movie Mama Agba
2026
Portrait of an Artist: Stephen Curry
Movie Self
2026
The Color of Cola
Movie Executive Producer
2026
W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel With a Cause
Movie Narrator (voice)
2025
ASALI: Power of the Pollinators
Movie Executive Producer
2025
G20
Movie President Danielle Sutton
2025
Number One on the Call Sheet
TV show Self
2025
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
TV show Self - Guest
2025
The Ebony Canal: A Story of Black Infant Mortality
Movie Narration
2024
Creature Commandos
TV show Amanda Waller (voice)
2024
Hollywood Black
TV show Self (archive footage)
2024
Kung Fu Panda 4
Movie The Chameleon (voice)
2024
Predator or Prey: Making The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Movie Self (Dr. Volumnia Gaul)
2024
Hot Ones Versus
TV show Self
2023
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Movie Dr. Volumnia Gaul
2023
Silver Dollar Road
Movie Executive Producer

More credits

2023
Air
Movie Deloris Jordan
2022
Food 2050
Movie Self - Narrator (voice)
2022
Black Adam
Movie Amanda Waller (uncredited)
2022
The Woman King
Movie Nanisca
2022
The Jennifer Hudson Show
TV show Self
2022
Oprah + Viola: A Netflix Special Event
Movie Self
2022
The First Lady
TV show Michelle Obama
2022
Peacemaker
TV show Amanda Waller (uncredited)
2021
The Unforgivable
Movie Liz Ingram
2021
The Suicide Squad
Movie Amanda Waller
2021
C ce soir
TV show Self - Guest
2020
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Movie Ma Rainey
2020
Dear...
TV show Self
2020
Celebrity IOU
TV show Self
2020
Giving Voice
Movie Self
2019
Live in Front of a Studio Audience: "All in the Family" and "Good Times"
Movie Florida Evans
2019
On Broadway
Movie Self (archive footage)
2019
In a Man's World
TV show Executive Producer
2019
The Kelly Clarkson Show
TV show Self
2019
Emanuel
Movie Executive Producer
2019
A Touch of Sugar
Movie Narrator
2019
Troop Zero
Movie Miss Rayleen
2018
Widows
Movie Veronica Rawlings
2018
Beyond Boundaries: The Harvey Weinstein Scandal
Movie Self (archive footage)