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.
VIOLA DAVISI’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.
More Viola Davis Quotes
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That’s why there’s so much bad acting out there, because you could see actors watching themselves.
VIOLA DAVIS -
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.
VIOLA DAVIS -
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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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.
VIOLA DAVIS -
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.
VIOLA DAVIS -
It’s time for people to see us, people of colour, for what we really are: complicated.
VIOLA DAVIS -
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.
VIOLA DAVIS -
They say, ‘To serve is to love,’ and I think to serve is to heal, too.
VIOLA DAVIS -
Self-deprecation is not an answer to keeping one’s balance. I think that it’s very damaging.
VIOLA DAVIS -
[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.
VIOLA DAVIS -
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.
VIOLA DAVIS -
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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Every artist, true artist, struggles with an overwhelming sense of feeling like you’re not worthy.
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Relationships change us and make us grow.
VIOLA DAVIS -
Cicely Tyson was my inspiration to become an actor.
VIOLA DAVIS






