When Viola Davis gave her acceptance speech after winning Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars last night for her role in Fences, I needed to lie down. It was a moment so intense and emotional that it damn near wore me out just listening to it! But if anyone deserves to get intense and emotional while waxing poetic about what it means to be an artist, it’s Viola Davis. Check out her full speech above.
She started by saying something rather disconcerting: “You know there’s one place where all the people with the greatest potential are gathered. And that’s the graveyard.”
However, once she went on to explain what she meant by that, it all made sense. She talked about how for her, the most important roles to play are, “the stories of the people who dreamed big, and never saw those dreams to fruition. People who fell in love and lost. I became an artist, and thank God I did, because we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life. So, here’s to August Wilson, who exhumed and exalted the ordinary people.”
She then, of course, thanked all the relevant parties, including her husband and daughter, “O captain, my captain” Denzel Washington, and in a particularly tearful moment, her parents.
In addition to winning a much-deserved Oscar for her performance in Fences, Davis also made history last night as the first black actor to win an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony. She’s just a Grammy away from an EGOT. Someone get this woman an audio book to narrate!
(via ABC News, image via screencap)
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