She's now won an Oscar, an Emmy and a Tony Award.
Viola Davis has just landed Best Supporting Actress at the 89th Academy Awards for her role in the 1950s African-American drama 'Fences'. The win was almost too much for the star though, who looked and sounded deeply overwhelmed as she accepted her prize.
Viola Davis and Denzel Washington star in 'Fences'
The actress is now a fully-fledged member of the Triple Crown Club having already won a Tony for 2001's 'King Hedley II' and an Emmy for 'How To Get Away With Murder' in 2015. Her Oscar has tied up those three gongs and made her one of the few people ever to manage the remarkable feat, and the second black person to do so after Whoopi Goldberg.
Breathless and tearful, Viola accepted her award in a powerful speech of thanks, her voice shaking as sobs threatened to break loose. 'There's one place where all the people with the greatest potential are gathered. One place. And that's the graveyard', she said. '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.'
'Fences', which is a word-for-word film adaptation of the late August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize winning 1983 play, was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay and saw its director and co-star Denzel Washington up for Best Actor in a Leading Role.
More: Watch the trailer for 'Fences'
The film follows the life of a working-class black family living in 1950s Pittsburgh; they are Troy Maxson (Denzel), his wife Rose (Viola) and son Cory (Jovan Adepo). It explores Troy's life before his family, where he had a stretch in prison for robbery, discovered his talent at baseball, but ultimately lost out on a Major League Baseball career. The experience causes him to clash with his Cory over his NFL ambitions, and indeed his life becomes marred by betrayal, jealousy and dishonesty.
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