Viola Davis

A graduate of Juilliard, Viola Davis built an exceptional background in theater productions and has continued to perform on-stage throughout her television and film career.
Making her feature film debut in 1996 as a nurse in The Substance of Fire, Davis followed that up with several TV movies and guest-star appearances on dramatic series like Law & Order and NYPD Blue. She went on to play another nurse in City of Angels, a hospital drama with a predominately African-American cast that didn’t last long on CBS. She began collaborating with Steven Soderbergh for Out of Sight, and went on to star in two of the director’s next few films, Traffic and Solaris.
In 2001, she appeared in Kate and Leopold and in Oprah Winfrey’s television presentation of Amy & Isabelle. The next year Davis played parts in both Far From Heaven and Denzel Washington’s directorial debut, Antwone Fisher.
In 2009 Davis received her first Academy Award nomination for her exceptional performance in Doubt (2008). Since then she’s appeared in a number of major motion pictures, including Law Abiding Citizen (2009) with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe and Knight and Day (2010) with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz.