Viola Davis Quotes

Normally when people ask me what I do I say I'm an actor, and that's what I always wanted to be and that's the way I approach work even when I'm directing it.

I stopped acting when I was about nineteen, twenty, when I got thrown out of college. I did act for about ten years. I don't know. I suspect I'm still a reasonably good actor, but I don't really know that I want to get on the stage again ... and having to say all those boring words by me over and over again ... I don't know if I want to do that. Also, I like a certain amount of freedom of movement, and if you're acting, you're stuck in one place for a long time. Having said that, I will probably be onstage next fall.

The idea of being a professional actor never occurred to anybody, including myself, for a long time.

I don't even want to think of myself as an actor because it's such an insecure place to go.

My path was to be an actor and it’s been very good to me in life. It’s broadened my horizons and given me a lot of gifts.

I think of being an actor as a blue-collar profession.

I grew up with it. As a young actor, I was always aware of the brilliant work of Shakespeare. We studied Romeo & Juliet and Macbeth in school. As a young actor, you're always mystified and intrigued by such brilliant work. To actually have the chance to be involved in this production was a wonderful thing for me.

Actors are the only honest hypocrites.

I do some acting. And there's a difference between "I do some acting" and "I'm an actor."

I was the youngest of five, and I think my mother always knew I was meant to be an actress.

I'd wanted to be [an actress] all my life.

I can't remember a time when I wasn't acting, so I can't imagine what I would do if I stopped now.

...and there I suddenly found my articulate self in a dazzling land of smiling, jostling people wearing and not wearing all sorts of costumes and doing all sorts of clever things. And that's when I knew! What other life could there be but that of an actor?

Most actors are very deeply passionate about their line of work. I suppose there are probably people who sell insurance policies that are passionate about it, but I'm thinking the ratio is a little higher for actors. But, I may be wrong.

They're a very strange lot actors, very strange people.

I like to work as an actor. Not just for money, but because I really enjoy acting.

I was raised in the theater and I started acting when I was nine. To me, the idea of being an actor was about playing different characters and being a chameleon. That's why I was in the theater.

If any child of mine becomes an actor I will turn in my grave.

My father was a director, and he used to always tell me, "You should be an actress." When I was 17, he gave me a job so that I'd be in the union.

I am in the theatrical profession myself, my wife is in the theatrical profession, my children are in the theatrical profession.I had a dog that lived and died in it from a puppy; and my chaise-pony goes on, in Timour the Tartar.

I'm lucky enough to say my day job is acting. I cut my teeth as a theater actor and playwright in New York.

You'd be surprised how much being a good actor pays off.

I did it once in high school - I was Sandy in Grease - and I decided then that I would never do it again. I've felt that way for years, and that's no bullshit.

I don't consider myself an actor, for me it's employment. Like the actor who's a waiter a lot, I'm an actor when I'm not on tour, in that that's a job I can do.

I wanted at one point to act, which is a weird thing for men to want to do. It's a very vain profession.