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1. Viola Davis, 61
Viola Davis had already won a Tony when movie audiences discovered how much power she could pack into eight minutes.
Playing the anguished mother in 2008’s Doubt opposite Meryl Streep, Davis earned her first Oscar nomination — and launched an extraordinary screen career.
The road there was anything but glamorous. One of six children, Davis grew up rummaging through garbage cans for food and living in condemned, rat-infested apartments. “I grew up in abject poverty,” she told AARP. “There was no evidence of greatness in my life. So I had to have magic.… I had to dare to ask the big, big question: ‘What if, Viola? What if there’s something out there for you?’ ”
What those years gave her, she said, was resilience. “I have the ability to survive the hard stuff.”
As a child, she found inspiration watching Cicely Tyson in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. She discovered her love of acting in high school. Scholarships carried her to Rhode Island College and Juilliard, then to the stage — and eventually to that pivotal scene with Streep.
“Our task as artists is to lean into the truth as much as you can stand, without judgment,” she said of the complex women she has portrayed.
After Doubt came a best actress Oscar nomination for The Help, followed by television history: In 2015, as formidable law professor Annalise Keating on How to Get Away With Murder, Davis became the first Black woman to win the Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a drama series. Then came Fences. Reprising the role that had already garnered her a Tony, Davis won the 2017 best supporting actress Oscar, becoming the first Black performer to achieve acting’s Triple Crown (Oscar, Emmy and Tony) — as well as the Movies for Grownups best supporting actress award.
“They are in my office,” she said of her awards. “I’m very proud of it.” She thinks often of her younger self: “Sometimes I want to reach out and go, ‘Do you know what’s coming? Hold tight!’ ”
Davis later broadened her impact behind the camera with JuVee Productions, which she founded with husband Julius Tennon — the couple share a teenage daughter, Genesis — producing projects including The Woman King.
Her candid 2022 memoir, Finding Me, became a bestseller. Its audiobook won a Grammy in 2023, completing her EGOT. “When you write about your trauma, you have to process,” she said. “That’s the hardest part.”
Having reckoned with the past, Davis is looking forward. Next up is the newly announced thriller Ascent, in which she’ll produce and star as a corporate fixer — “sort of James Bond meets Network.”
And just like when she was a kid, she’s open to the magic of possibility.
“I’m curious to see, OK, Viola, what’s going to come from that?” she said. “What beautiful surprises?”
