Ultimately, it’s not your job, as an actress, to satisfy people’s expectations or image of who you should be. Even in your life, you are just who you are.
VIOLA DAVISIt’s time for people to see us, people of colour, for what we really are: complicated.
More Viola Davis Quotes
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I just look at women sometimes and I just want to ask them, “Do you know how fabulous you are?”
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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 want my work to reflect my level of gifts and talent.
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That’s how I digest it, ’cause I can press the fast-forward button and I know that I’m gonna have to continue to be an actor, continue to make choices, continue to perform in a show every week.
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I am the mother of a 6-year-old now, so that’s changed my entire perspective.
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Eating bread in Hollywood is a no-no!
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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.
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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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That 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.
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Creativity only resonates if you infuse real life into the work.
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I am not a glam woman – this definitely is a mask I put on for the public.
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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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Sometimes you take a job for the money, sometimes you take it for the location, sometimes you take it for the script; there are just a number of reasons, and ultimately what you see is the whole landscape of it. But I can tell you from behind the scenes – that’s what it is, as an actor.
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They say, ‘To serve is to love,’ and I think to serve is to heal, too.
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I’ve always just simply seen myself as an actor. And I believe that it serves me well to just think in terms of my craft. If hypothetically, I saw myself only as a sex symbol, or as some other limited stereotype, I think I would feel like a complete failure.
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When you pray, God puts people in your life to lead you when you cannot lead yourself.
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I think that I’m coming off as the biggest alcoholic in the world.
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Anything can be achieved with a good, healthy dose of courage.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I love Wal-Mart. You can put that down. I love Wal-Mart. My husband and I hang out there.
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[I listen to] “Uptown Funk”, Bruno Mars, sometimes even Nina Simone and Adele. Whatever comes up, whatever floats my boat, whatever makes me tap into something in me to just decompress – I listen to that.
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Any actor will tell you, as soon as your ego and your vanity come into the mix, it destroys your work. Completely destroys it.
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And “classically not beautiful” is a fancy term for saying ugly. And denouncing you. And erasing you.
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I’ve been to acting school and I think that at the end of the day, when you just focus on the work and you’re comfortable with who you are, that at some point someone’s going to recognize your talent and give you an opportunity.
VIOLA DAVIS