Viola Davis
I also tried to leave myself alone enough to be surprised by the news. That's when it had its potency. If I approach everything with joy and hope and love, which is what we all do. Every day we get up we're hoping that today is going to be the day that's going to get you over the hump. I tried to do that as much as I could. So then when all the news happens you see what she is made out of.Collection: Joy
I came back from vacation and I ate everything. I mean I'm sipping cocktails by the pool, thinking I'm a size 2. And now, you know, my dress is tight. So, I need it, too. I always need to remind myself: It's okay.Collection: Mean
We know the road of lack of recognition, of people telling us that we can't headline a movie because black women don't translate overseas, that every time we try to break the glass ceiling, people say no, people push back. And it's everything that people don't see out there.Collection: Glasses
My biggest fear is that a paparazzi or someone ... is going to come in my backyard and see me when I get in my pool. That would be very unfortunate.Collection: Would Be
Denzel [Washington] just knows the actor. He knows the process, and you don't often get that.Collection: Actors
Obviously, ["Fences"] is a character-driven piece in every sense of the word, and Denzel [Washington] knows the actor. He gave us two weeks of rehearsal. He is a truth teller, and he is a truth seer. So he knows when something is not going in the right direction, and he will call you on it. But, he knows the word to use to unlock whatever is blocking you. So I think he's fabulous and he's a teacher.Collection: Teacher
When Denzel [Washington] first called me on the phone after we'd just done a reading of the film ["Fences"]. He said, "Oh Viola it was so good, wasn't it?! I'm gonna tell Russell [Hornsby] to lose a little bit of weight and..." I was just sitting there thinking, why is he calling me? And I told him, "Denzel don't you tell me to lose weight!" He said, "I'm not telling you to lose weight! I can't believe you would say that."Collection: Reading
Lloyd Richards is another director who was like that, who was a teacher.Collection: Teacher
When a director can give you a word that allows you to feel less tense about yourself, to make you feel like you indeed are good enough before you even get to the work, you can't ask for anything more than that.Collection: Giving
It's harder to work with people who are not as dedicated to their craft. It also leaves you a better actor when you finish the project, since you always feel like you've learned something.Collection: People
The sentiment that I had a little trouble with was the idea that, "You change the school, you change the community." I couldn't wrap my mind around that.Collection: School
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: Rope
I can't speak for the Kathryn Stockett, but I would guess that she feels proud of the progress the South has made because, growing up, she experienced a very different Mississippi than the one that exists today.Collection: Growing Up
To me, it's always a luxury to be able to work with the best of the best because they make it easier for you to do what you do.Collection: Luxury
I've done a really bad job with teaching daughter to put on makeup, but I have taught her how to put on lipstick.Collection: Daughter
I love young adult fantasies. While I say that, I have not seen all of the Twilight and Harry Potter movies. But I've read all of the books, and I love them. I love them because I enjoy being transported to a different world and having my imagination challenged. That's a huge part of what we do as actors. We have to imagine ourselves in a different world. And when you are in a young adult fantasy, it challenges you in the best way.Collection: Book
I think watching my mom gave me great inspiration, I wish that had been reinforced more verbally. It would have kept me from a lot of pain.Collection: Mom
I started a production company out of necessity, the need for great narratives for actors of color.Collection: Color
Are there women in your world now that have given you those lessons in confidence? Oh absolutely. Meryl [Streep] does it all the time. I think she does it in a way that she doesn't even understand or think she's doing it.Collection: Thinking
I did want to mark the fact that it was the first African-American to win the Lead Actress category.I thought it was so progressive.Collection: Winning
Recognition has brought me more work, because your name suddenly comes to mind when some directors are trying to cast a character. And my stage work has specifically enabled people to have faith that I can handle a role, even when it's not specifically written for an African-American. So, I'd have to say that recognition brings work. A successful movie brings more work, and that been the biggest blessing.Collection: Character
I just hope this [Emmy] is now a part of the status quo that women of color are included in the narratives that continue to write lead roles for us.Collection: Writing
I've always seen myself for who I am, which is a lot of things.Collection: Who I Am
I have a lot of spiritual books that I read that I really, really love - everything from the Bible to Joseph Campbell, who I love. He wrote The Hero of a Thousand Faces. It's about exploring what is heroic in you. It helps me a lot.Collection: Spiritual
My first wedding was 15 people at our condo. The second was maybe about a hundred people at this fabulous casino. And you know what? I have almost no pictures of the second one, because I put disposable cameras on the tables, because everyone said, "The best pictures are the most candid! The best pictures are the ones people just take!" So, I put disposable cameras on the tables, and guess what? There were so many kids there that those cameras were stomped on. I had so many pictures of the floor, of people's eyes, of someone's finger.Collection: Kids
[Meryl Streep] just sent me an email, and I was like, "That's perfect." She was like, "Yes, Viola, now that you've just had your vow renewal...this is the best part of your life now. There's not anything that you don't know anymore in terms of what's good and bad out there, so now you can just fly." She's always imparting wisdom like that.Collection: Perfect
I don't think most people understand acting, even the people who call themselves savvy, even actors.Collection: Thinking
If you're a boxer, you want to get the ring with a Mike Tyson or Muhammad Ali type. When you're acting, you want to get in with Meryl Streep, and that's what I did.Collection: Acting
There are all these awards that you've never heard of, and you get nominated, and suddenly you're at these awards shows, so you really don't care if you win. You really don't. You're going there, you're getting dressed up. And then you get to the awards show, and you sit down. You walk the red carpet. Everybody loves you. It's great. You sit down, and all of a sudden your category comes up, and you get nervous. And it's a complicated emotion, because it's not like you absolutely want to win, but then you don't want to lose.Collection: Love You
Most actors don't understand acting. I think it's an art form that craft is out the window. I don't think people get it at all, most of the time. Or they get some of it, not all of it. If you get an Academy Award nomination, you think 95 percent of the profession is unemployed at any given time, most people will never even find work as an actor, and the ones who do will probably make $50,000 a year at the most if they're lucky. Some will never do Broadway. Some will never do a major role. And a really, really, really small percentage of them maybe will be nominated for a major award.Collection: Art
Even when I go shopping, I don't shop as a woman. The only time I shop is when I need something, and I'm in and out in less than 30 minutes, so I have no energy to look at 50 million gowns and styles and make sketches and think about heels. I'm not girly in that way. I'm relying on the stylist to do 99 percent of the work.Collection: Girly
Actor is just a strange profession, it really is, that you could be in front of the same people for years, and all of a sudden one thing happens, and it finally clicks.Collection: Years
Just because I was 30 doesn't mean I was grown. God, I was such an idiot. I was an absolute idiot at 30. And I grew up.Collection: Mean
I think that enjoying the fruits of one's labor is very different than arrogance. And when I was younger, I didn't know the difference. I thought that if you were gracious, that meant that you somehow were getting ahead of yourself. And I felt self-deprecation kept you balanced.Collection: Thinking
Do the work. Create the character, don't wing it and don't hope for an award or the Red Carpet. At the end of day the people who stay in the line the longest are the people who are good.Collection: Character
In film, it's up to the director to tell the story in whatever way he sees fit, and however you fit into that ultimate vision is where you fit in. So what you did on that stage, on that set, may not be what you ultimately see when you see the final product. And TV works so fast, it works so fast, it's just about product. The average TV show, one episode shoots eight, 10 days. That's it. You get three or four takes for a scene, and then it's over. But people do it for the money.Collection: People
You have to understand being an actress, and being an African American actress of a certain hue, I think that you have to be bold with your choices. Even when you're not bold with your choices, have people see it as bold.Collection: Thinking
It's always hard to be private in public, which is what acting is because you have to do thing really emotionally naked.Collection: Acting
You absolutely feel, as a black actress, that you've got to ride the wave because there's just so few roles. I hate to play that card, but it's the truth. There's not a lot of roles.Collection: Hate
People often forget our emotional contribution to relationships and to marriage and that might be a completely sexist comment but, what I tried not to do [in "Fences"] is, I tried to just put that monologue as part of my stream of consciousness.Collection: Emotional
I'm sorry, if you've been married for five minutes, you've sacrificed something, you've looked over at your partner and have gone, "Oh my God this is the biggest mistake I've ever made in my life." And then the next moment it's "This is the most beautiful and extraordinary human being, and I'm going to stick with it because I love them more than anyone else." That monologue to me is the universal thing, especially for women because I feel like that's the big thing with women.Collection: Beautiful
I think at the end of the day she [Rose from "Fences"] is a strong woman in the truest sense of the word. I think all of that is in the narrative; it's already there. The hope is there; the playfulness is there; it's there. I wish I could take credit for it, but it's there.Collection: Strong Women
I would like to say something deeper, but for me, I saw a production of "Fences" in Rhode Island and a fabulous actress played Rose, but when she first came on the stage she was mad. You could just see it. She was all, "Troy stop!" So by the time you get to the revelation scene, I didn't think she loved him, so there was no loss. I think that the real tragedy and the real drama or the thing that makes you lean in is to see the love, to see the commitment. To see the fact that Rose is invested in this marriage no matter what.Collection: Real
I sort of feel like that's the most revolutionary thing we can do with our narrative for me as Black people is to show that we are just like you.Collection: People
For me, that was a hard scene [in "Fences"] to do twenty-something times, which (laughing), I counted. That was difficult, but once I did it, I felt like I could do anything.Collection: Laughing
It was hard, that confrontation scene [in "Fences"], that was a hard one. I felt like it was relentless, I never felt like I could just drop the ball when the coverage was on him or anything else.Collection: Balls
[Denzel Washington] was rustling with something and when he came back it was with a word about loving myself and the body that I'm in because I was still going on and on about the weight thing. I just liked that, because what people don't understand is that so much of what blocks us as actors is so personal.Collection: Block
I look back at pictures of myself and I remember thinking, "I was so fat when I was growing up. I was 165 pounds when I graduated from high school. I was a mess".Collection: Growing Up
Now, a lot of people may be surprised at that, but I'm very dedicated to working out. Usually, it's running. It clears my mind, totally. I get on the treadmill, which I just bought, and I run on that for about 40-45 minutes.Collection: Running