Viola Davis
I think tapping into one's power and one's potential is a very frightening thing.
I still feel like when I walk on the set, I'm starting from scratch, until I realize, 'OK, I do know what I'm doing. I'm human.'
'Rebel' is not a word I would describe for myself, but I feel like I was a total rebel being an actor. It made me feel like there was something in me, a passion, a love - and that I didn't just squelch it.
As an actor, every opportunity, every role, everything that I do is an opportunity to have someone have a human experience with my work. I don't just want it to be about a cute wardrobe and a high paycheck.
'Fences' is under the headline of the project of my lifetime. It is the most perfect and undeniably developed narrative that I've ever worked on.
Those things that we probably are ashamed of as human beings, certain things that no one would ever talk about - as actors, when we transform into a character, we empathize with those moments.
I have been given a lot of roles that are downtrodden, mammy-ish. A lot of lawyers or doctors who have names but absolutely no lives. You're going to get your three or four scenes; you're not going to be able to show what you can do.
Every job I've ever gotten has transformed me in some way as an actor.
I can't deal with actors! I can't deal with myself. We're neurotic and miserable ... I love doing what I'm doing, but while I'm doing it, I'm miserable.
I would like to say that I'm a walking poster board for feminism and women's liberation, but there are things that I do in my life that deeply, deeply fall short of being a statement for being a strong woman. I am flawed as much as anyone else.
You cannot live to please everyone else. You have to edify, educate and fulfill your own dreams and destiny.Collection: Dream
They say the two most important days in a person's life were the day you were born and the day you discover why you were born.Collection: Two
When your passion and drive are bigger than your fears, you just dive.Collection: Passion
Anything can be achieved with a good, healthy dose of courage.Collection: Healthy
Do not live someone else's life and someone else's idea of what womanhood is. Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that's inside of you.Collection: Ideas
When you pray, God puts people in your life to lead you when you cannot lead yourself.Collection: People
You can't be hesitant about who you are.Collection: Hesitant
I don't have any time to stay up all night worrying about what someone who doesn't love me has to say about me.Collection: Night
I just look at women sometimes and I just want to ask them, "Do you know how fabulous you are?"Collection: Looks
I don’t want anyone putting any limits on me.Collection: Want
Let me tell you something: The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.Collection: Winning
There's not one woman in America who does not care about her hair, but we give it way too much value. We deprive ourselves of things, we use it to destroy each other, we'll look at a child and judge a mother and her sense of motherhood by the way the child's hair looks. I am not going to traumatize my child about her hair. I want her to love her hair.Collection: Mother
All you really need to do is shift people just a tiny bit for change to happen. It doesn't have to be huge and humongous.Collection: People
Every artist, true artist, struggles with an overwhelming sense of feeling like you're not worthy.Collection: Struggle
As an artist, you've got to see the mess. That's what we do. We get a human being, and it's like putting together a puzzle. And the puzzle has got to be a mixture, a multifaceted mixture of human emotions, and not all of it is going to be pretty.Collection: Artist
You have two stark choices when you find yourself in a really desperate situation. You can either fold and cave-in to it or you can become really passionate about getting out of it. When you're really passionate, you're going to grab hold of every rope you see, and wrap them around your arms and legs to claw your way out. And that's the way I've felt in my life.Collection: Desperate Situations
I’m a black woman who is from Central Falls, Rhode Island. I’m dark skinned. I’m quirky. I’m shy. I’m strong. I’m guarded. I’m weak at times. I’m sensual. I’m not overtly sexual. I am so many things in so many ways and I will never see myself on screen. And the reason I will never see myself up on screen is because that does not translate with being black.Collection: Strong
I would love to be remembered as a person who used her life to inspire others in any way, shape or form.Collection: Inspire
Creativity only resonates if you infuse real life into the work.Collection: Real
I think that you always want to gravitate towards people who absolutely are great at what they do and go for authenticity.Collection: Thinking
Relationships change us and make us grow.Collection: Grows
At the end of the day, nobody can tell you how to tackle failure or how to handle change. The world is very good at encouraging you to go along with the status quo and at basking in your successes.Collection: The End Of The Day
We as artists cannot be politicians. We as artists can only be truth-tellers.Collection: Artist
They say, 'To serve is to love,' and I think to serve is to heal, too.Collection: Thinking
Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that's inside of you.Collection: Womanhood
I was like, 'What is this?' Until I found out it was stress related. That's how I internalized it. I don't do that anymore. My favorite saying in the world is, 'The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.' I am telling you, I have spent so much of my life not feeling comfortable in my skin. I am just so not there anymore.Collection: Stress
But the biggest beauty advice I've given my daughter is every morning I say, "Genesis, what are the two best parts of you?" And she says "my brain and my heart." And I say, "You've gotta remember that, Genesis. You've gotta remember that you're not what you look like," you know? I think that's the best beauty advice I could give her.Collection: Daughter
I want my work to reflect my level of gifts and talentCollection: Gifts And Talents
Ordinary people who are just kind of just going about their lives are transformed into heroes because they have the courage to put their voices out there. And I think that's a powerful message in this time of political strife.Collection: Powerful
When you see what the deficit is, then you have to do something about it.Collection: Deficit
At the end of the day, nobody can tell you how to tackle failure or how to handle change. The world is very good at encouraging you to go along with the status quo and at basking in your successes. But when you hit a wall in your personal life, and you screw up, people don't give you a chance to navigate your way through it and tap into what's extraordinary about you.Collection: Wall
Any actor will tell you, as soon as your ego and your vanity come into the mix, it destroys your work. Completely destroys it.Collection: Vanity
Self-deprecation is not an answer to keeping one's balance. I think that it's very damaging.Collection: Thinking
It would be great to bust through and make history. But what's more important is the opportunity to continue to get roles that are complicated and wonderful, to be a part of the narrative and to get to do what our counterparts are able to do. It doesn't just stop at holding an award.Collection: Opportunity
I think sometimes you have to see a physical manifestation of your dream. Otherwise you have to hope, pray and try to conjure something in your mind to feel like it's possible.Collection: Dream
I felt that there could be some anger. There could be some frustration that he has the tendency to take over the room, but I wanted all of those things to show in the grays of her hair and the fact that her hips are much wider than they probably were when she met him. I wanted it to show in the fact that her hair is not done up all the time. I wanted it to be a part of that every day that wasn't in your face. Because then for me, that's overacting. To me, that's not "being." I wanted Rose [in "Fences"] to be many things.Collection: Frustration
I guess they say, "Necessity is the mother of invention" because you have two stark choices when you find yourself in a really desperate situation. You can either fold and cave-in to it or you can become really passionate about getting out of it.Collection: Mother
It's not anything that is just perpetuated by White America or just perpetuated by Black America. It's just a cultural understanding that you're just not a part of the equation when it comes to sexuality and I think that people mistake your lack of opportunity with the level of your talent.Collection: Mistake
I think sometimes what people miss about black people is that we're complicated.Collection: Thinking