A Quote by Viola Davis

Actor is just a strange profession, it really is, that you could be in front of the same people for years, and all of a sudden one thing happens, and it finally clicks. — © Viola Davis
Actor is just a strange profession, it really is, that you could be in front of the same people for years, and all of a sudden one thing happens, and it finally clicks.
So many of us feel like we're misfits until we finally find our tribe - the other people who are are strange in the same way - and suddenly everything clicks.
Just watching an actor in front you really provokes you in such a sudden, unexpected way. You can't ask for anything more from someone you're working with than that.
Something happens in school sometimes where you're like, 'Oh, I'm not an expert, and I have to defer to people who are.' And it happens not just in school: it happens in religion, too. Defer to the experts. A printing press is a big deal - they got the Bible, and all of a sudden they could read it for themselves.
I think 40 years ago, it would have been a little bit different because people had a tendency to think the actor was their part. I do find people who, all of a sudden, realize who is sitting in the restaurant and the first thing they react on is not necessarily, "There's that actor," but it's, "There's that killer guy."
I played a lot of serious parts in a lot of TV movies and early miniseries but what happens is that you get sort of locked into "Oh no, he's a serious actor." Well, I was a serious actor for nine years or 10 years and then I get into comedy and everybody said, "Oh no, he's funny. He can do comedy," and then all of a sudden, you're just a comedy guy.
It is not easy to convey, unless one has experienced it, the dramatic feeling of sudden enlightenment that floods the mind when the right idea finally clicks into place. One immediately sees how many previously puzzling facts are neatly explained by the new hypothesis. One could kick oneself for not having the idea earlier, it now seems so obvious. Yet before, everything was in a fog.
I think as an actor, you're constantly putting yourself out there, and a lot of times failing - and failing in front of a bunch of people - and sometimes you have a good moment and something clicks.
For some reason I did something where I realized I could get a reaction. That was when I broke out of my shell at school, because I really didn't have any friends or anything like that and I just kind of was going along, and then finally I did this zany thing, and all of a sudden I had tons of friends.
The good thing about rules is if you have to do an interview, and you make some rules for that interview, like, "I can only ask him about five years of his life or her life," it narrows down your story. It's the same thing with acting. In my profession, if I say, "These are the rules for this character," all of the sudden, you create life.
All of a sudden I was Joan [Mad Man] and they're going, "Oh, so she plays a badass in this." And I'm like, "Oh my god, I get to play badasses." Firefly was a little bit of that, but she started out as a mouse and then she turned into a dragon. But I never really had that opportunity. So all of a sudden people were like, "Oh, do you feel like you're being typecast?" I would say, "No, this is just opening the doors." No one thought I could do it and someone finally trusted me to do it.
To be married in our profession is not an easy thing. Theres too many beautiful people around, very interesting people. Its just a matter of really having-being patient and probably having the capacity and the faith of falling in love with your own wife again. That happens to me.
Overnight success just doesn't happen. You've got to put your time in. You're up and down - all of a sudden, it just clicks
At the age of 50, I did "Celebrity Fit Club" and I had to get on a scale and be weighed in front of everyone. I felt like I was naked and for the first time, there was nowhere to hide. I felt like I could finally be myself. It was really cathartic, and I realized I could share my mistakes. I could tell my story and not be ashamed, and show others with these same problems that they aren't alone.
It's a really strange thing to be doing, to go on stage and all of a sudden have bright lights and spotlights.
That's kind of the nature of the profession I'm in. It's frustrating. Things don't go your way, and I was no exception, in that I spent many years struggling to get work, and there are a lot of people more talented than myself who got jobs before me. And I finally, after years and years and years, got lucky.
Mystery is what happens to us when we allow life to evolve rather than having to make it happen all the time. It is the strange knock at the door, the sudden sight of an unceremoniously blooming flower, an afternoon in the yard, a day of riding the midtown bus. Just to see. Just to notice. Just to be there.
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