Viola Davis

Viola Davis is a dramatic actor of the highest rank, a performer of astonishing range and emotional temperaments. Capable of powerful expressions of quiet subtlety and galvanizing anger—and everything in between—she is the only Black U.S. actor to receive an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony (two, in fact), and the first actress of color to receive four Oscar nominations and twice in both acting categories.

Not unlike Laurence Olivier, Davis has displayed over the years on screen, stage, and TV that she can play high-toned and down-to-earth with unpredictable touches that are her own. Remarkably, Davis has seldom been a solo lead star in a movie, which is the case with The Woman King (2022), directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and with Lashana Lynch and John Boyega.

After amassing a considerable reputation in the theater, Viola Davis became a favorite supporting actor for writer-director Steven Soderbergh in Out of Sight (1998), Traffic (2000), and Solaris (2002). Davis’ first important supporting role on the screen (and nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar) was in writer-director John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt (2008), with the world-class cast of Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams. Davis was also supported by another impressive cast in the D.C. drama, State of Play (2009), directed by Kevin MacDonald and written by Matthew Michael Carnahan, Tony Gilroy, and Billy Ray, and starring Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright, Jason Bateman, Jeff Daniels, and Helen Mirren.

The well-reviewed commercially inert Trust (2010), was Davis’ third film, again in support, opposite Clive Owen, Catherine Keener, and Jason Clarke under David Schwimmer’s direction. Viola Davis’ first Oscar nomination (Best Actress) came for her stellar work in writer-director Tate Taylor’s The Help (2011), with Jessica Chastain, Bryce Dallas Howard, Allison Janney, Octavia Spencer (winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar), and Emma Stone.

Davis, in an intense performance, received third billing behind Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal in Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners (2013), with Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, and Paul Dano. Davis reunited with director Taylor and co-actor Spencer for the James Brown biopic, Get on Up (2014), with Chadwick Boseman, Nelsan Ellis, Dan Aykroyd, and Craig Robinson. Davis’ first co-starring role came in the little-seen revenge drama, Lila & Eve (2015), her second movie with Jennifer Lopez (the first being Soderbergh’s 1998 adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s Out of Sight, in which Davis had a tiny role).

In an unusual move, Viola Davis joined the Superhero wave in the movies as part of the sprawling ensemble of David Ayer’s Suicide Squad (2016), the third installment in the DC Extended Universe, with Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, and Joel Kinnaman; Davis continued with her DC Extended Universe adventure in writer-director James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad (2021), with Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Kinnaman, and Sylvester Stallone.

Although she won the Oscar for Supporting Actress for her exquisite performance in Denzel Washington’s adaptation of August Wilson’s drama, Fences (2016), Davis was arguably co-lead with Washington given the power of portrayal. Davis’ first truly commanding lead role finally arrived in Steve McQueen’s feminist crime thriller, Widows (2018), earning Davis a BAFTA Best Actress nomination, with a striking cast including Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Jacki Weaver, Carrie Coon, Robert Duvall, Liam Neeson.

Viola Davis returned to the work of August Wilson in her next vivid starring role (earning her four Oscar nominations, for Best Actress) in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020), reuniting with Chadwick Boseman, and with Glynn Turman, Colman Domingo, and Michael Potts, under George C. Wolfe’s direction. Davis appeared in a small but impactful supporting role in Nora Fingscheidt’s Netflix production, The Unforgivable (2021). Davis followed this turn the following year with The Woman King, as a female African warrior.