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Viola Davis
Known for: ActingViola 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 58
How to Get Away with Murder
as Annalise Keating 
The Suicide Squad
+2
as Amanda Waller 
The Help
+2
as Aibileen Clark 
Suicide Squad
+5
as Amanda Waller 
Knight and Day
+1
as CIA Director Isabel George 
Kung Fu Panda 4
+5
as The Chameleon (voice) 
Prisoners
+5
as Nancy Birch 
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
+3
as Dr. Volumnia Gaul 
Law Abiding Citizen
+5
as Mayor April Henry 
Disturbia
+1
as Detective Parker 
Get Rich or Die Tryin'
+1
as Grandma 
Doubt
+2
as Mrs. Miller 
The Woman King
+1
as Nanisca 
State of Play
+4
as Dr. Judith Franklin 
Ender's Game
+3
as Major Gwen Anderson 
Eat Pray Love
+4
as Delia Shiraz 
The First Lady
as Michelle Obama 
Air
+4
as Deloris Jordan 
Blackhat
+1
as Carol Barrett 
The Unforgivable
as Liz Ingram 
The Andromeda Strain
as Dr. Charlene Barton 
Out of Sight
+2
as Moselle 
Widows
+3
as Veronica Rawlings 
Beautiful Creatures
+1
as Amma Treadeau 
Fences
+3
as Rose Maxson 
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
+2
as Abby Black 
Trust
+1
as Gail Friedman 
G20
+3
as President Danielle Sutton 
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
as Ma Rainey 
Solaris
+3
as Gordon 
Nights in Rodanthe
+2
as Jean 
It's Kind of a Funny Story
as Eden Minerva 
Get On Up
+2
as Susie Brown 
Troop Zero
as Miss Rayleen 
Far from Heaven
as Sybil 
Madea Goes to Jail
+4
as Ellen 
Stone Cold
+2
as Molly Crane 
The Pentagon Wars
+2
as Sgt. Fanning 
Antwone Fisher
+2
as Eva May 
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them
+5
as Professor Lillian Friedman 
Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise
+3
as Molly Crane 
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him
as Professor Lillian Friedman 
Won't Back Down
+1
as Nona Alberts 
The Architect
+1
as Tonya Neely 
Jesse Stone: Sea Change
+3
as Molly Crane 
Love, Marilyn
as Self 
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her
as Professor Lillian Friedman 
Jesse Stone: Night Passage
+2
as Officer Molly Crane 
Lila & Eve
as Lila Walcott 
Beyond Boundaries: The Harvey Weinstein Scandal
+4
as Self (archive footage) 
Custody
as Martha Schulman 
The Shrink Is In
as Robin 
The Substance of Fire
as Nurse 
Life Is Not a Fairytale: The Fantasia Barrino Story
as Diane Barrino 
Dark Girls
+2
as Self 
Grace & Glorie
+2
as Rosemary Allbright 
Giving Voice
as Self