One of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World" in 2012, American actress Viola Davis has been nominated for an Academy Award twice, for her work in the films Doubt (2008) and The Help (2011). She currently stars in the television series How to Get Away with Murder, in which she plays Annalise Keating, a criminal law professor.
"I see Annalise as I see a lot of women; women who are so successful, ambitious and driven that they put on a mask when they leave the house every day. That's the 21st-century woman. I think many women are successful in their professional lives - they are making the money and all that - but in their personal lives are a complete mess, because they haven't paid any attention to it, because they spent all of their time being successful. I see Annalise as being a poster child for that."
"She's nothing like me. That's not the way I live my life and I couldn't be more different than Annalise. I don't wear a mask to that extent and I don't believe in secrets. I definitely have a happy marriage and family life. But I do identify with her in the part where, when you show drive in your work, you feel you need to leave your vulnerability at home. This is a feeling I have as a 21st-century woman: I got to be really hard to face the world out there; I got to be a bulldog."
"The reason I became an actress is because I wanted my acting to reflect life as it is. I want to put truth on the screen. I want real women to see real women on the screen. It's very hard to be private in public. For African-American women who wear wigs, there're huge implications in taking off your wig and revealing your natural hair underneath. That moment was about this woman … at night - taking off her mask, the mask she has worn all day. I imagine a young girl seeing a woman like me on TV taking off her wig and make-up on screen - there is something about it that makes you feel less alone."
"I would love to do really great work and for women who are marginalised to see me as an inspiration. For women who don't fit a mould, I want to be an inspiration for them the same way [actress] Cicely Tyson has been to me."
"When I first started I was trying to be everybody. I went to auditions with the right kind of hair and dress and it would take me forever to find them, then I would go to the audition and not get the part because I was trying to be someone I wasn't. It was almost like I was denying me. Now I know that the only thing you have when you walk into a room is you - that's it! At the end of the day you have to be really, really, really comfortable being you."