Viola Davis

Biography

Viola Davis (born August 11, 1965) is an American actress, film producer, and author. A Juilliard graduate, she began her career in Central Falls, Rhode Island, appearing in small stage productions and made her Broadway debut in August Wilson's Seven Guitars (1996), earning a Tony nomination. She won two Tony Awards for Wilson plays: Best Featured Actress for King Hedley II (2001) and Best Actress for Fences (2010). She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 2016 film adaptation of Fences and received Oscar nominations for Doubt (2008), The Help (2011), and 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 portraying Annalise Keating in How to Get Away with Murder (2014–2020). She has played Amanda Waller in the DC franchise from Suicide Squad (2016) to Black Adam (2022) and appeared in films including Widows (2018) and The Woman King (2022). Davis and her husband co-founded JuVee Productions; she is known for advocacy on behalf of human rights and women of color, was named a L'Oréal Paris ambassador in 2019, was listed among Time's 100 most influential people in 2012 and 2017, won a Grammy for the audiobook narration of Finding Me, and received the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes in 2025.

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