Viola Davis
Known For
Acting
Born
1965-08-11 in St. Matthews, South Carolina, USA
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.
Most Known For
The Simpsons
as Narrator (voice)
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
as Donna Emmett
Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen
as Self - Guest
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
as Self
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
as Self - Guest
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
as Attorney Campbell
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
as Self
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
as Self - Guest
Late Night with Seth Meyers
as Self - Guest
The Kelly Clarkson Show
as Self
The Graham Norton Show
as Self
Scandal
as Annalise Keating
The View
as Self - Guest
The View
as Self
How to Get Away with Murder
as Annalise Keating
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
as Terry Randolph
Hot Ones
as Self
Golden Globe Awards
as Self - Presenter
Golden Globe Awards
as Self - Nominee
The Practice
as Aisha Crenshaw