Viola Davis is the first African American to achieve the “Triple Crown of Acting”.
Having won an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, and two Tony Awards, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012 and 2017; Viola Davis is our woman crush and wonder woman for this week.
Portfolio Accolades
Viola Davis was born on the August 11, 1965 at Saint Matthews, South Carolina, United States. She is an American actress and tv personality.
Davis began her acting career in Central Falls, Rhode Island, starring in minor theater productions. After graduating from the Juilliard School in 1993, she won an Obie Award in 1999 for her performance as Ruby McCollum in Everybody’s Ruby.
She played minor roles in several films and television series in the late 1990s and early 2000s, before winning the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Tonya in the 2001 Broadway production of August Wilson’s King Hedley II.
Davis’s film breakthrough came in 2008, when her role as a troubled mother in the film “Doubt” earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Greater success came to Davis in the 2010s. She won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for playing Rose Maxson in the Broadway revival of August Wilson’s play “Fences”.
For starring as a 1960s housemaid in the comedy-drama The Help (2011), Davis received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won a SAG Award.
In 2014, Davis began playing lawyer Annalise Keating in the ABC television drama series How to Get Away with Murder, and in 2015, she became the first black woman to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
In 2016, Davis played Amanda Waller in the superhero film Suicide Squad and its upcoming sequel and reprised the role of Maxson in the film adaptation of Fences, winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.She went on to receive a BAFTA nomination for starring in the heist film Widows (2018).
Davis is the co founder of a production company, JuVee Productions.
Viola Davis The Human Rights Activist and Philanthropist.
Davis is also widely recognized for her advocacy and support of human rights and equal rights for women and women of color.
At the age of two, Davis was taken to jail with her mother after she was arrested during a civil rights protest.
She has described herself as having “lived in abject poverty and dysfunction” during her childhood, recalling living in “rat-infested and condemned” apartments.
In 2011, Davis donated funds to her hometown public library in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to assist in preventing its closure due to a lack of city funding.
In 2018, Davis donated funds to her alma mater, Central Falls High School, for its theater program.
Since 2014, Davis has collaborated with the Hunger Is campaign to help eradicate childhood hunger across America.
Speaking on her work, Davis said that
“seventeen million kids in this country, so one in five kids in this country, go to bed hungry. I was one of those kids, because I grew up in abject poverty; I did everything that you could possibly imagine to get food: I rummaged in the garbage cans, I stole from the local store constantly.”
As an honoree at the 2014 Variety Power of Women luncheon, Davis further commented that
“the thing that made me join…was the word ‘eradicate’, ‘get rid of’ – not by thirty-percent not by twenty-percent not by fifty-percent, but to do away [with it]. Because everyone should be a child, and should grow up and have a chance at the American dream”.
In September 2017, Davis started the $30K in 30 Days Project with Hunger Is, awarding a $1,000 grant to the Rhode Island Community food bank in her home state.
2020 upcoming film and television roles
In 2020, Davis served as an executive producer and appeared in the documentary film “Giving Voice”, following students entering the August Wilson monologue competition for a chance to compete on Broadway.
The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and will be released by Netflix.
Davis will star in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom as the titular character based upon the novel of the same name play of the same name directed by George C. Wolfe for Netflix.
Davis will reprise her role as Amanda Waller in The Suicide Squad set for release in August 2021.
She will also appear in an untitled drama film, directed by Nora Fingscheidt opposite Sandra Bullock for Netflix.
Networth
Viola Davis one of the most acclaimed actresses of her generation. She was born to very humble beginnings and had a poverty-stricken childhood.
She grew up with her parents and three other siblings in Rhode Island.
As of 2020, Viola Davis’ net worth is $25 million.
Viola Davis Love Life
She said; “I was the loneliest woman in the world, and someone said, ‘You should just pray for a husband,” she told Page Six in 2013. She ended up taking her friend’s advice, and told her friend she “wanted a big Black man from the South who looked like a football player, who already had children, who maybe had been married before.”
Viola Davis Says After the First Date With Her Husband, Julius Tennon, Her Life “Got Better”
“Every way, anxiety went away, fear went away, he just made my life better.”
Davis is married with a child and also stepmother to her spouses kids.
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