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