Viola Davis famous quotes

There's not one woman in America who does not care about her hair, but we give it way too much value. We deprive ourselves of things, we use it to destroy each other, we'll look at a child and judge a mother and her sense of motherhood by the way the child's hair looks. I am not going to traumatize my child about her hair. I want her to love her hair.
-- Viola Davis

#Mother #Children #Hair

I think that you always want to gravitate towards people who absolutely are great at what they do and go for authenticity.
-- Viola Davis

#Thinking #People #Want

Do not live someone else's life and someone else's idea of what womanhood is. Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that's inside of you.
-- Viola Davis

#Ideas #Womanhood

I'm a sitting duck. No, seriously, I mean I wish I could say more, but I'm a sitting duck because I can't get ahead of them [cyber experts]. They're far ahead of me. That's what I learned: how vulnerable we are. It's a big, silent monster out there. That's what it feels like.
-- Viola Davis

#Mean #Ducks #Wish

When you see what the deficit is, then you have to do something about it.
-- Viola Davis

#Deficit

They say the two most important days in a persons life were the day you were born and the day you discover why you were born.
-- Viola Davis

#Two #Important #Born

They say, 'To serve is to love,' and I think to serve is to heal, too.
-- Viola Davis

#Thinking #Heal

It feels really good to embrace exactly who I am and be my sexy, to be my sexualized, to be my woman.
-- Viola Davis

#Sexy #Who I Am #Embrace

You can't be hesitant about who you are.
-- Viola Davis

#Who You Are

Tyler Perry's 'Madea Goes to Jail!' Which, I have to tell you, of everything that I've ever done in my career, that's the only thing that's perked up the ears of my nieces and nephews. That is it, that's done it for them. That made me a bona fide star in their eyes!
-- Viola Davis

#Stars #Niece #Eye

I have been given a lot of roles that are downtrodden, mammy-ish,
-- Viola Davis

#Roles #Given #Downtrodden

Even when I get the fried-chicken special of the day, I have to dig into it like it’s filet mignon,
-- Viola Davis

#Special #Chickens #Fried Chicken

And that's what people want to see when they go to the theater. I believe at the end of the day, they want to see themselves - parts of their lives they can recognize. And I feel if I can achieve that, it's pretty spectacular.
-- Viola Davis

#Believe #People #The End Of The Day

Your internal dialogue has got to be different from what you say. And, you know, in film, hopefully that registers and speaks volumes. It’s always the unspoken word and what’s happening behind someone’s eyes that makes it so rich.
-- Viola Davis

#Eye #Different #Unspoken Words

And ‘classically not beautiful’ is a fancy term for saying ugly. And denouncing you. And erasing you.
-- Viola Davis

#Beautiful #Ugly #Fancy

Sometimes you see how humanity can rise above any kind of cultural ills and hate that a person's capacity to love and communicate and forgive can be bigger than anything else.
-- Viola Davis

#Hate #Humanity #Forgiving

When you're working as an actor, you don't think that when you get out of school, it's going to be so hard to get a job. Just to get a job. Any job. Whatsoever. You don't think that people are going to see you in a certain way.
-- Viola Davis

#Jobs #School #Thinking

It's time for people to see us, people of colour, for what we really are: complicated.
-- Viola Davis

#People #Complicated #Colour

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.
-- Viola Davis

#Queens #Numbers #Long

When you pray, God puts people in your life to lead you when you cannot lead yourself.
-- Viola Davis

#People #Praying #People In Your Life

I needed to make my wig ogg because I no longer wanted to apologize for who I am
-- Viola Davis

#Inspiring #Hilarious #Who I Am

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.
-- Viola Davis

#Jobs #Numbers #Actors

Motherhood is 50 million heartbreaking moments, and 100 million joyous ones.
-- Viola Davis

#Inspirational #Motherhood #Heartbreaking

And this is what was fascinating to me about 'The Help'; they were ordinary people who did extraordinary things.
-- Viola Davis

#People #Ordinary #Helping

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.
-- Viola Davis

#Thinking #People #Dresses

I was like, 'What is this?' Until I found out it was stress related. That's how I internalized it. I don't do that anymore. My favorite saying in the world is, 'The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.' I am telling you, I have spent so much of my life not feeling comfortable in my skin. I am just so not there anymore.
-- Viola Davis

#Stress #Feelings #Skins

And I sit in my jacuzzi with my script.
-- Viola Davis

#Scripts #Jacuzzi

I’m a black woman who is from Central Falls, Rhode Island. I’m dark skinned. I’m quirky. I’m shy. I’m strong. I’m guarded. I’m weak at times. I’m sensual. I’m not overtly sexual. I am so many things in so many ways and I will never see myself on screen. And the reason I will never see myself up on screen is because that does not translate with being black.
-- Viola Davis

#Strong #Fall #Dark

Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that's inside of you.
-- Viola Davis

#Womanhood

I can't deal with actors! I can't deal with myself. We're neurotic and miserable... I love doing what I'm doing, but while I'm doing it, I'm miserable.
-- Viola Davis

#Actors #Miserable #Deals

I think that's something that people feel that I do really well; I don't mind it, because ultimately I think the characters I play move people, and who wouldn't want to move people?
-- Viola Davis

#Moving #Character #Thinking

We grew up in abject poverty. Acting, writing scripts and skits were a way of escaping our environment at a very young age.
-- Viola Davis

#Writing #Escaping #Age

I didn't see myself any different from my white counterparts in school. I just didn't! I thought I could do what they did. And what I didn't do well, I thought people were going to give me the opportunity to do well, because maybe they saw my talent, so they would give me a chance. I had no idea that they would see me completely different.
-- Viola Davis

#School #Opportunity #Ideas

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.
-- Viola Davis

#Mom #Believe #Order

I love Wal-Mart. You can put that down. I love Wal-Mart. My husband and I hang out there.
-- Viola Davis

#Husband #My Husband #Hanging Out

We're in crisis mode as black actresses. It's not only in the sheer number of roles that are offered and that are out there, but the quality of the roles. The quality - and therein lies the problem. We're in deprivation mode because me, Alfre and Phylicia, we're in the same category.  Whereas if you take a Caucasian actress, you have the one who are the teens, in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s - they're all different. There are roles for each of them. But you only have two or three categories for black actresses.
-- Viola Davis

#Lying #Two #Numbers