Viola Davis Quotes

The image is one thing and the human being is another. It's very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.

Automatically everybody thinks of me as an actress who is trying to sing. And if I weren't me I'd probably think the same thing.

I am surprised at the way people seem to perceive me, and sometimes I read stories and hear things about me and I go "ugh." I wouldn't like her either. It's so unlike what I think I am or what my friends think I am.

It's hilarious to be considered a sex symbol. In school I was a beanpole with a nose I hadn't grown into. Being thought of as sexy makes one employable, but it's not going to last forever, so I try not to think about it. It's like something that exists outside of me.

I do think that I am fundamentally the same relatively simple person I've always been. I just have this flashy, wacky job [actress] that confuses people into thinking that I'm somehow ultrafascinating.

I don't really see myself that way, as some typical sexy young ingénue. I've never been that way. And, for a while, there was a disconnect between who I am and how I present myself on a public platform. That was because I didn't necessarily feel comfortable sharing that much of myself with other people who I didn't know.

When people come up to me expecting me to be just like what they thought a Beatle would be, they're disappointed. I never was a Beatle, except musically. I don't think any of us was. What is a Beatle anyway? I'm not a Beatle or an ex-Beatle or even the George Harrison. I'm just a man. Very ordinary.

I've definitely grown, and I think I've done enough stuff that people might look at me only as Veronica Mars. But honestly, I really don't mind if they do.

I read that I’m supposed to be Hollywood’s new sex symbol . I think I’m the most unsexy thing that ever was. I’m open for everything of course, but I’m certainly not aware of being sexy.

This is my life, I think. I am an accumulation of objects.

I'm not always what I think I am, but I am what I think.

A well-educated black has a tremendous advantage over a well-educated white in terms of the job market. I think sometimes a black may think they don't have an advantage or this and that. I've said on one occasion, even about myself, if I were starting off today, I would love to be a well-educated black, because I believe they do have an actual advantage.

I'm shy. People get confused. They think as an actor you can get up and be confident on the screen. Why aren't you like this in normal life? Why can't you act in your social life? 'Because I can't!'

I've always wanted two lives - one for the movies, one for myself.

I'm really much more like Phil Potter from [the 1979 film] Starting Over. People do think I'm the Bandit [from Smokey and the Bandit ], and I'm a lot more serious than that.

After all, what is your personal identity? It is what you really are, your real self. None of us is what he thinks he is, or what other people think he is, still less what his passport says he is. And it is fortunate for most of us that we are mistaken. We do not generally know what is good for us. That is because, in St. Bernard's language, our true personality has been concealed under the 'disguise' of a false self, the ego, whom we tend to worship in place of God.

A lot of the turning points happen in high school and in college, and it defines a lot of how you see the world and how you decide to defend yourself from the world. Some people - their defense mechanism is, I'm really smart or I'm sexy or I'm the leader. And other people - they hide or they make jokes.

A person likes to think of himself in a certain way, and when something happens that makes that no longer possible, you mourn the old self. The person you thought you were.

I didn't want to get stuck in pretty, public school roles, or I knew I'd end up as some sort of caricature.

First of all, I'm not a heartthrob. If you saw me in high school, you wouldn't say I'm a heartthrob. Having a hit song, the minute you're famous, you're a heartthrob. I know you don't believe me, but I honestly don't consider myself a heartthrob.

I'm going to pull myself together for a while and think-try to determine what character of a woman I am; for, candidly, I don't know. By all the codes which I am acquainted with, I am a devilishly wicked specimen of the sex. But some way I can't convince myself that I am. I must think about it.

a public persona that might be different from what we truly feel inside... everyone wonders if they are good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, no matter how old they are. It is an archetypical moral dilemma - Do you act like yourself and risk becoming an outcast?

I don’t even think of myself as a quote, unquote star - that’s really douchey. I think of myself as just like . . . a dance commander.

But I am I now; and so many other millions are so irretrievably their own special variety of 'I' that I can hardly bear to think of it. I: how firm a letter; how reassuring the three strokes: one vertical, proud and assertive, and then the two short horizontal lines in quick, smug succession. The pen scratching on the paper…I…I…I…I…I…I.

I couldn't imagine someone playing me or writing a book about who I am. Although I let people write articles and try and express who I am, and it blows up wildly in my face.