Viola Davis
Viola Davis (/vaɪˈoʊlə/ vy-OH-lə; born August 11, 1965) is an American actress and film producer. Her accolades include both the Triple Crown of Acting and EGOT. Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012 and 2017. The New York Times ranked her ninth on its list of the greatest actors of the 21st century (2020). Davis received the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2025. A graduate of Juilliard, Davis began her career in Central Falls, Rhode Island, appearing in small stage productions. She made her Broadway debut in the August Wilson play Seven Guitars (1996) for which she earned her first Tony nomination. She would later win two Tony Awards, both for Wilson plays. Her first win was for Best Featured Actress in a Play playing the titular character Tonya, a woman grappling with trauma and loss in King Hedley II (2001), followed by her second win for Best Actress in a Play playing Rose Maxson, a working class mother in Fences (2010). She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for reprising her role in the 2016 film adaptation of Fences. She was Oscar-nominated for playing a complex mother in Doubt (2008), a 1960s housemaid in The Help (2011) and Ma Rainey in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020). On television, she became the first black actress to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her role as lawyer Annalise Keating in the ABC legal drama series How to Get Away with Murder (2014–2020). Davis joined the DCEU playing Amanda Waller starting with Suicide Squad (2016). She has also starred in the crime drama Widows(2018), and historical action film The Woman King (2022). Davis and her husband are founders of the production company JuVee Productions, and she is also widely recognized for her advocacy and support for human rights and women of color. She became a L'Oréal Paris ambassador in 2019. The audiobook narration of her 2022 memoir Finding Me won her the Grammy Award for Best Audio Book, Narration & Storytelling Recording. Description above from the Wikipedia article Viola Davis, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
136 acting credits
Acting · 136
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
1999
The Simpsons
1989
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
2000
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
2014
Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen
2009
Late Night with Seth Meyers
2014
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
2015
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
2001
The Graham Norton Show
2007
The Kelly Clarkson Show
2019
Without a Trace
2002
Golden Globe Awards
1944
Scandal
2012
Third Watch
1999
The View
1997
The Practice
1997
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
2003
Judging Amy
1999
Hot Ones
2015
The Jennifer Hudson Show
2022
How to Get Away with Murder
2014
The Guardian
2001
Peacemaker
2022
NYPD Blue
1993
Tony Awards
1956
Variety Studio: Actors on Actors
2014
60 Minutes
1968
The Ellen DeGeneres Show
2003
The Division
2001
CBS News Sunday Morning
1979
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
1992
Close Up with The Hollywood Reporter
2015
Kung Fu Panda 4
2024
Brothers and Sisters
2006
Providence
1999
Sofia the First
2013
The Oscars
1953
Prisoners
2013
The Suicide Squad
2021
Black Adam
2022
Hack
2002
Ocean's Eleven
2001
Hot Ones Versus
2024
Creature Commandos
2024
The Help
2011
Suicide Squad
2016
Law Abiding Citizen
2009
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
2023
United States of Tara
2009
Celebrity IOU
2020
C ce soir, le débat
2021
Live from E!
2002
Number One on the Call Sheet
2025
Threshold
2005
Blackhat
2015
Air
2023
The First Lady
2022
G20
2025
Eat Pray Love
2010
The Woman King
2022
Disturbia
2007
The Actor Awards Presented by SAG-AFTRA
1995
Dear...
2020
The Andromeda Strain
2008
Knight and Day
2010
Widows
2018
Ender's Game
2013
Traffic
2000
Fences
2016
The Unforgivable
2021
Century City
2004
Traveler
2007
Hollywood Black
2024
Solaris
2002
State of Play
2009
Syriana
2005
Trust
2010
Hallmark Hall of Fame
1951
City of Angels
2000
Beautiful Creatures
2013
World Trade Center
2006
Doubt
2008
Get Rich or Die Tryin'
2005
Out of Sight
1998
Kate & Leopold
2001
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
2011
Far from Heaven
2002
Madea Goes to Jail
2009
Antwone Fisher
2002
Get On Up
2014
Nights in Rodanthe
2008
Troop Zero
2019
It's Kind of a Funny Story
2010
Won't Back Down
2012
Stone Cold
2005
Children of Blood and Bone
2027
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
2020
Jesse Stone: Sea Change
2007
The Pentagon Wars
1998
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him
2014
Jesse Stone: Night Passage
2006
Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise
2006
Beyond Boundaries: The Harvey Weinstein Scandal
2018
Beyond All Boundaries
2009
On Broadway
2019
Custody
2016
Love, Marilyn
2013
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them
2014
The Grammys
1959
Lila & Eve
2015
The Architect
2006
The Best of The Tony Awards: The Plays
2006
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her
2014
Live in Front of a Studio Audience: "All in the Family" and "Good Times"
2019
Grace & Glorie
1998
Life Is Not a Fairytale: The Fantasia Barrino Story
2006
W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel With a Cause
2026
August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand
2015
The Shrink Is In
2001
Amy & Isabelle
2001
Predator or Prey: Making The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
2024
The Substance of Fire
1996
Giving Voice
2020
Small Great Things
—
The Personal History of Rachel DuPree
—
Oprah + Viola: A Netflix Special Event
2022
Operation Othello
2019
Doubt: Stage to Screen
2009
House of Games
—
Ally Clark
—
Food 2050
2022
A Touch of Sugar
2019
The Ebony Canal: A Story of Black Infant Mortality
2025
I Almost Forgot About You
—
Two Butterflies
—
Miss Apprehension and Squirt
1998