You'll cry just as hard at Viola Davis' Oscars speech as you did at 'Fences'
Watch out, Grammys -- Viola Davis is coming for you.
Now only one win away from an EGOT, Viola Davis has won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her powerhouse performance as Rose Maxson in Fences, beating Lion's Nicole Kidman, Moonlight's Naomie Harris, Hidden Figures star Octavia Spencer and Manchester By the Sea's Michelle Williams.
Davis gave a speech that was every bit as emotional and affecting as her Fences performance:
"Thank you to the Academy. You know there's one place that all the people with the greatest potential are gathered, one place, and that's the graveyard. People ask me all the time, 'what kind of stories do you want to tell, Viola?' And I say exhume those bodies, exhume those stories. 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."
This is Davis' first Oscar win and third nomination at the Academy Awards -- she was previously in the supporting category in 2009 for Doubt, and up for the Lead Actress award in 2012 for The Help.
Davis previously won a Tony Award for her role as Rose in the Broadway revival of Fences back in 2010. The film adaptation reunited her with her Tony-winning co-star Denzel Washington, who also directed the movie.
In a quirk indicative of the Academy's strategic nomination process, Davis won the Tony for Lead Actress in a Play, but campaigned in the supposedly less competitive Supporting Actress category at the Oscars. (Washington was nominated in the lead category at both the Oscars and the Tonys.)
That decision clearly paid off for Davis here, but pundits couldn't help but point out that her performance was worthy of a Lead Actress win.
Davis holds an Emmy for her lead role in ABC's How to Get Away with Murder, and Tonys for Fences and King Hedley II.
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Topics Oscars
