191 Quotes by Viola Davis

You have to have an unlimited imagination, an unlimited restraint on your inhibition when you're working. You have to even dare to fail, even in a scene, whatever it is.

I don't know how I got a great husband. I mean, God just blessed me with that one. Because - trust me - before him, I was not making good choices. So I was just absolutely blessed. I just prayed for that man He's my secret weapon because he's so gregarious, and he's so filled with joy. Me? I can sometimes be more cynical, and I'm very shy.

I reserve the right to be a mess and completely unlikable.

I look back on those early days in the theater like the beginning of a love affair, when you're totally in love with the work, and that's all there is.

What it meant for me to win the Emmy is I found it. It's not just the award. It's what it's going to mean to young girls - young brown girls, especially. When they saw a physical manifestation of a dream, I felt like I had fulfilled a purpose.

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.

I know I'm not the best, but I'm proud of myself.

You want to be able to really tackle a character and make it a fully-dimensional human being who is complicated, funny, and all the things that a person could be. If you can achieve that, you feel great. You so rarely get to do that as an actress in general, but as a black actress, it's almost never.

I've been online doing all kinds of research and that seems to be the constant criticism, that Aibileen's accent was just too thick. And for me, I don't want anything to distract from the character.