Any actor will tell you, as soon as your ego and your vanity come into the mix, it destroys your work. Completely destroys it.
VIOLA DAVISThat is a huge need for a lot of women, even in 2016. You can have the most ambitious career woman, and at the end of the day, she’s like, ‘I just want to be a mom.
More Viola Davis Quotes
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Acting, it’s the disappearance of self, disappearance of your own needs and your own wants and the kind of embracing of the character that makes it work.
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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.
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We as artists cannot be politicians. We as artists can only be truth-tellers.
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I think that you always want to gravitate towards people who absolutely are great at what they do and go for authenticity.
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One of the people I’ve always wanted to emulate in pursuing that dream was Meryl Streep, in terms of the different types of roles she’s been able to play and the number of different stories she’s been able to tell.
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I’ve been in this business 25 years. I’ve been eking out a living doing Broadway, off-Broadway… I’ve seen the unemployment line a lot.
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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.
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I’m a sitting duck. No, seriously, I mean I wish I could say more, but I’m a sitting duck because I can’t get ahead of them [cyber experts]. They’re far ahead of me. That’s what I learned: how vulnerable we are. It’s a big, silent monster out there. That’s what it feels like.
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It’s time for people to see us, people of colour, for what we really are: complicated.
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I want to span different genres. I want to be able to transform. I want to be able to be sexy, and funny, and quirky, and all the other things that I am. And I feel that the best way that I can achieve that is by producing.
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Self-deprecation is not an answer to keeping one’s balance. I think that it’s very damaging.
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Tyler Perry’s ‘Madea Goes to Jail!’ Which, I have to tell you, of everything that I’ve ever done in my career, that’s the only thing that’s perked up the ears of my nieces and nephews. That is it, that’s done it for them. That made me a bona fide star in their eyes!
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I really wanted to show [in fences] a marriage that is working. Not perfect, but working.
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If the opportunity is not out there for you to play it, then you don’t see it.
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I do believe that there are African Americans who have thick accents. My mom has a thick accent; my relatives have thick accents. But sometimes you have to adjust when you go into the world of film, TV, theatre, in order to make it accessible to people.
VIOLA DAVIS






