C
Children of Blood and Bone
as Mama Agba
2027
V
Viola Davis
Biography
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.
Personal details
Full filmography
2027
2026
W
W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel With a Cause
as Narrator (voice)
2026
P
Portrait of an Artist: Stephen Curry
as Self
2026
T
The Color of Cola
2026
2025
G
G20
2025
T
The Ebony Canal: A Story of Black Infant Mortality
as Narration
2025
A
ASALI: Power of the Pollinators
2025
2024
K
Kung Fu Panda 4
London premiereas The Chameleon (voice)
2024
P
Predator or Prey: Making The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
as Self (Dr. Volumnia Gaul)
2024
2023
A
Air
as Deloris Jordan
2023
T
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
London premiereas Dr. Volumnia Gaul
2023
S
Silver Dollar Road
2023
2022
O
Oprah + Viola: A Netflix Special Event
as Self
2022
B
Black Adam
as Amanda Waller (uncredited)
2022
T
The Woman King
2022
F
Food 2050
as Self - Narrator (voice)
2022
2021
T
The Suicide Squad
as Amanda Waller
2021
T
The Unforgivable
as Liz Ingram
2021
2020
G
Giving Voice
as Self
2020
M
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
as Ma Rainey
2020
2019
O
On Broadway
as Self (archive footage)
2019
T
Troop Zero
2019
L
Live in Front of a Studio Audience: "All in the Family" and "Good Times"
as Florida Evans
2019
A
A Touch of Sugar
as Narrator
2019
E
Emanuel
2019
2018
W
Widows
as Veronica Rawlings
2018
B
Beyond Boundaries: The Harvey Weinstein Scandal
as Self (archive footage)
2018
2017
B
Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds
as Self (uncredited)
2017
N
Night Shift
2017
2016
S
Suicide Squad
as Amanda Waller
2016
C
Custody
as Martha Schulman
2016
F
Fences
as Rose Maxson
2016
2015
B
Blackhat
as Carol Barrett
2015
L
Lila & Eve
as Lila Walcott
2015
A
August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand
as Self
2015
2014
T
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them
as Professor Lillian Friedman
2014
G
Get On Up
as Susie Brown
2014
T
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her
as Professor Lillian Friedman
2014
T
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him
as Professor Lillian Friedman
2014
2013
E
Ender's Game
as Major Gwen Anderson
2013
L
Love, Marilyn
as Self
2013
B
Beautiful Creatures
as Amma Treadeau
2013
P
Prisoners
as Nancy Birch
2013
2012
W
Won't Back Down
as Nona Alberts
2012
2011
T
The Help
as Aibileen Clark
2011
E
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
as Abby Black
2011
D
Dark Girls
as Self
2011
2010
K
Knight and Day
as CIA Director Isabel George
2010
E
Eat Pray Love
as Delia Shiraz
2010
T
Trust
as Gail Friedman
2010
I
It's Kind of a Funny Story
as Dr. Eden Minerva
2010
2009
D
Doubt: Stage to Screen
as Self
2009
L
Law Abiding Citizen
as Mayor April Henry
2009
M
Madea Goes to Jail
as Ellen
2009
S
State of Play
as Dr. Judith Franklin
2009
B
Beyond All Boundaries
as Hortense Johnson
2009
2008
N
Nights in Rodanthe
as Jean
2008
D
Doubt
as Mrs. Miller
2008
2007
D
Disturbia
as Detective Parker
2007
J
Jesse Stone: Sea Change
as Molly Crane
2007