Viola Davis is an American actress and film producer. Known for her work across screen and stage, her accolades include both the Triple Crown of Acting and the EGOT. Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012 and 2017. In 2020, The New York Times ranked her ninth on its list of the greatest actors of the 21st century.
A graduate of Juilliard, Davis began her career in Central Falls, Rhode Island, appearing in small stage productions, before expanding to screen with minor roles in film and television during the late 1990s and early 2000s. She won two Tony Awards—Best Featured Actress in a Play and Best Actress in a Play—for the respective roles of Tonya in the 2001 Broadway production of August Wilson's King Hedley II and Rose Maxson in the Broadway revival of Wilson's play Fences (2010).
The drama Doubt (2008) earned Davis her first Academy Award nomination. She received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress for playing a 1960s housemaid in The Help (2011) and Ma Rainey in the biopic Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020). She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for reprising her role in the 2016 film adaptation of Fences. Her role as lawyer Annalise Keating in the ABC drama series How to Get Away with Murder (2014–2020) won her the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, making her the first black actress to do so. Davis is also recognized for appearing in big budget blockbusters, playing Amanda Waller in the DC Extended Universe, beginning with Suicide Squad (2016), and leading the 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.
