The Stunning Transformation Of Viola Davis

Viola Davis has emerged as one of the most important and influential working actresses today, thanks to her mastery of many performance mediums and her transcendent style choices, as well as her compelling awards season and awareness speeches. Davis has come a long way since her difficult youth, and while her rise to Hollywood fame and acclaim might seem meteoric, she spent many years quietly slaying her way to the top until she got her long overdue big-screen breakthrough. Here's a look back at the stunning transformation of Viola Davis.

Despite her inauspicious beginnings, Viola Davis' ambition to act came along early in her life when she witnessed Cicely Tyson's Emmy-winning title performance in The Autobiography of Jane Pittman in 1974. She told Dallas' WFAA 8 news station, "I saw that performance in the midst of that apartment that was infested with rats and had no plumbing and no telephone. It was literally like the birds stopped chirping, she walked into my heart, and I had that physical manifestation of a dream." Given her precarious circumstances, it may have been easy for Davis to chalk up her ambition as unachievable, but her sister encouraged her to aspire for the performing arts programs in her area, saying, "You have to decide right now what you want to be because that's the only way you are not going to be poor."

Davis eventually achieved a degree in theater at Rhode Island College in 1988 and then attended the prestigious Juilliard School, from which she graduated in 1993. She's since gotten to share the screen with Tyson, whose performance inspired her career path so many years before. Not only did they work together on The Help (2011), but they actually costarred several times in Davis' hit TV drama How to Get Away with Murder, after Davis convinced producers to hire Tyson to portray her mother on the show.

While it would take years for Viola Davis' formidable screen presence to receive as much recognition and reverence as her stage work, she earned her Screen Actors Guild membership card right around the same time she was getting started on the Broadway circuit. The actress revealed to TV Insider that her first cinematic role was a one-day appearance in The Substance of Fire (1996) as "Nurse." 

"I had to pass [Timothy Hutton a vial of] blood, and I got paid $518. I did my first take and thought, 'Oh my God that was so easy!'" she remembered. "I started taking off my wardrobe and they said, 'You're not done.' I said, 'This is going to be hard work for $518 — you got more money? But it was fabulous. I thought I had made it."

Although Viola Davis had certainly proven her merits by this time, she would become a household name in 2008 with her masterful performance alongside Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams in Doubt. Davis' work in the film would earn her not only a slew of nominations and wins — including her first Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actress — but it also established her as a force majeure in films, on par with some rather formidable castmates.

Streep, in particular, was taken by Davis' talents, lapping praise on her costar at Davis' Walk of Fame ceremony in January 2017, saying, "Viola Davis is possessed. She is possessed to the blazing, incandescent power. She is arguably the most immediate, responsive artist I have ever worked with. She's so alive, she glistens. She plants herself in a scene where she has no words and she writes paragraphs with her eyes. She's a force of nature — and she's the most generous, present person I know. She has earned every step on the ladder to the leadership position she now enjoys in this business." Considering they had only worked together in a single film, Davis really must have made an impact on her co-star. Perhaps even more importantly, Davis also made a lasting impression on audiences, while enjoying a serious uptick in starring role opportunities.

In 2012, while Viola Davis was making her second round on the major movie awards circuit for her work in The Help (2011), she decided to bare even more of her true self to fans by ditching her traditional wigs and showing off her natural hairstyle on the red carpet. Although her friend and former co-star Meryl Streep went home with the trophy that night for her work in The Iron Lady, Davis remained a stone cold winner for her inspiring au naturel look, and she would default to that look on many occasions afterward as well.

The decision to skip the wig, she told InStyle, came at the suggestion of her husband. "My husband wanted me to take the wig off," she explained to the magazine. "He said, 'If you want to wear it for your career, that's fine, but in your life wear your hair. Step into who you are!' It's a powerful statement." Not only was it powerful and exhilarating to witness, but it would also inform some of her most pivotal career moves going forward.

Viola Davis and her husband, Julius Tennon, have been married three times. They were originally married in 2003, at which time she wore a simple Express skirt to her ceremony. According to InStyle, they then renewed their vows — not once, but twice. The second vow renewal ceremony in 2016 was a much more high-profile event than the former one. "I wanted an experience of feeling alive. There's no better way to feel what life is truly about than the birth of a child and getting married to someone you love — really love. It's a reminder. A wake up. My career is about success but my marriage and my life is about significance," she explained of her decision to re-wed Tennon, with whom she shares daughter Genesis, born in 2011.

In addition to having an A-list guest list — including Oprah Winfrey and her HTGAWM co-stars — she also stunned in a luxuriously custom Carmen Marc Valvo gown that she described as ideal for her body type because, "It accentuates my waist. It's dramatic, timeless, and romantic. I wanted something that made a statement when I walked in the room but also that didn't look like I was trying too hard." Little Genesis wore her own white designer gown to match her parents, too.

Viola Davis finally received the recognition long due to her in 2017, when she accepted the Academy Award for best supporting actress for her work in the critically lauded film Fences. Previously she'd been nominated for the same category for her work in Doubt alongside Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman and for the category of best actress in a leading role for her starring role in The Help. But 2017 was her first time receiving an Oscar.

Davis dazzled as she accepted the Oscar, taking the time to tearfully praise the acting profession for treasuring the importance of storytelling. "I became an artist, and thank God I did because we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life," she proclaimed in her acceptance speech. She also praised her co-star, the legendary Denzel Washington.

Davis closed the speech by celebrating her family who were in the audience that night. "You teach me every day how to live, how to love," she continued. "I'm so glad that you are the foundation of my life." 

With so many accomplishments already behind her, Viola Davis could easily rest on her laurels and enjoy a life of ease. But there's presumably still a lot that Davis wants to do in her career and in her personal life. But at this stage in life, what exactly would Davis say to her younger self? "I would tell her that she was enough," she stated. 

"Until recently, someone told me, 'Maybe you need to let the little girl heal you at 54. Maybe you need to allow the little girl to be excited at the 54-year-old she gets to become,'" she revealed in a 2019 interview with People. "Because actually, she did pretty good." 

Davis acknowledged just how extraordinary she is and that she should be proud of both the woman she is and the little girl she once was. "She was a survivor. She got out of it," she continued. "And it makes me look at my past completely differently when I see that."