Viola Davis
Acting
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.
Children of Blood and Bone
Mama Agba
G20
President Danielle Sutton
The Ebony Canal: A Story of Black Infant Mortality
Narration
Kung Fu Panda 4
The Chameleon (voice)
Predator or Prey: Making The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Self (Dr. Volumnia Gaul)
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Dr. Volumnia Gaul
Air
Deloris Jordan
Food 2050
Self - Narrator (voice)
Black Adam
Amanda Waller (uncredited)
The Woman King
Nanisca
Oprah + Viola: A Netflix Special Event
Self
The Unforgivable
Liz Ingram
The Suicide Squad
Amanda Waller
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Ma Rainey
Giving Voice
Self
Live in Front of a Studio Audience: "All in the Family" and "Good Times"
Florida Evans
On Broadway
Self (archive footage)
A Touch of Sugar
Narrator
Troop Zero
Miss Rayleen
Widows
Veronica Rawlings
Beyond Boundaries: The Harvey Weinstein Scandal
Self (archive footage)
Fences
Rose Maxson
Suicide Squad
Amanda Waller
Custody
Martha Schulman
Lila & Eve
Lila Walcott
August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand
Self
Blackhat
Carol Barrett
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him
Professor Lillian Friedman
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her
Professor Lillian Friedman
Get On Up
Susie Brown
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them
Professor Lillian Friedman
Ender's Game
Major Gwen Anderson
Prisoners
Nancy Birch
Love, Marilyn
Self
Beautiful Creatures
Amma Treadeau
Won't Back Down
Nona Alberts
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Abby Black
The Help
Aibileen Clark
It's Kind of a Funny Story
Dr. Eden Minerva
Trust
Gail Friedman
Eat Pray Love
Delia Shiraz
Knight and Day
CIA Director Isabel George
Beyond All Boundaries
Hortense Johnson
Law Abiding Citizen
Mayor April Henry
State of Play
Dr. Judith Franklin
Doubt: Stage to Screen
Self
Madea Goes to Jail
Ellen
Doubt
Mrs. Miller
Nights in Rodanthe
Jean
Jesse Stone: Sea Change
Molly Crane
Disturbia
Detective Parker
The Architect
Tonya Neely
Life Is Not a Fairytale: The Fantasia Barrino Story
Diane Barrino
World Trade Center
Mother in Hospital
The Best of The Tony Awards: The Plays
Tonya (segment "King Hedley II")
Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise
Molly Crane
Jesse Stone: Night Passage
Officer Molly Crane
Syriana
CIA Chairwoman
Get Rich or Die Tryin'
Grandma
Stone Cold
Molly Crane
Antwone Fisher
Eva May
Solaris
Gordon
Far from Heaven
Sybil
Kate & Leopold
Policewoman
Ocean's Eleven
Parole Board Interrogator (voice) (uncredited)
The Shrink Is In
Robin
Amy & Isabelle
Dottie
Traffic
Social Worker
Grace & Glorie
Rosemary Allbright
Out of Sight
Moselle
The Pentagon Wars
Sgt. Fanning
Miss Apprehension and Squirt
Sharon Hughes
The Substance of Fire
Nurse