Viola Davis Quotes
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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 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.
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I am not a writer, but I feel that when our production company is successful, we'll be able to give some young writers with fresh voices an opportunity to put their work out there.
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All you really need to do is shift people just a tiny bit for change to happen. It doesn't have to be huge and humongous.
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I think sometimes what people miss about black people is that we're complicated.
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I worked in television; I'm the Failed Pilot Queen, I've done so many television shows, pilots, theater ... when you do it for so long, I'm telling you, you get to the point where it becomes varied because you take what's available for a number of reasons. It's just an occupational hazard.
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In my mind, I see a line. And over that line, I see green fields and lovely flowers and beautiful, white women with their arms stretched out to me over that line, but I can't seem to get there no how. I can't seem to get over that line.
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That's why there's so much bad acting out there, because you could see actors watching themselves.
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You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.
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I talk to women all the time and try to impart wisdom.
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I am addicted to any facial product that's anti-aging.
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We as artists cannot be politicians. We as artists can only be truth-tellers.
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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.
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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.
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No matter what, people don't think of me for glamorous parts. I'll go to an audition or a meeting in a pretty dress, and they still think of me as depressed or embattled. Hopefully, that will change.
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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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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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Each character has their own challenges. The challenge to doing one scene is your whole history of who you are and your relationships, you only have this one shot.
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Let me tell you something: The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.
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I needed to make my wig ogg because I no longer wanted to apologize for who I am
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I would love to be remembered as a person who used her life to inspire others in any way, shape or form.
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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."
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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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Knowing the only way out is education, even if you don't have parents that are extraordinarily wealthy. I understand that I have to be an active participant in [my daughter's] education in order for her to thrive in the world.