Time’s Oscars 2012: Great Performances [x]

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role

Viola Davis’ Acceptance Speech

FT. ALL OCTAVIA SPENCER’S EMOTIONS 

I was eight years old when I decided to be an actor. And I am just so privileged to be gazing on the beautiful face of the woman who inspired me that beautiful day, and that’s Cicely Tyson.

And when I woke up and realized how difficult it was to be an actor, and how the rejection was so high, then another beautiful face graced the screen when I was in college, and that was Meryl, who just …always inspires me.

But there’s so many people involved in The Help, in lieu of mentioning all them, I just have to say that, what is there but a dream? You can’t trade in your dream for another dream. I am so proud to be an actor, and I thank the Screen Actors Guild for this award.

And I have a special, special note to the kids in Central Falls, Rhode Island, in Segue Institute of Learning in Central Falls, Rhode Island: to dream big and dream fierce.

Thank you very much.

Viola Davis arrives at the 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards held at The Shrine Auditorium on January 29, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Steve Granitz)

(Source: claviculars)

Newsweek’s Oscar Roundtable

(Source: cilvia16)

The Help’s Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer in W Magazine’s Best Performances 2012 issue.

(Source: amyohconnor)

w magazine best performances 2012

I remember when I played the character in Doubt. It was a character that not a lot of black people embraced. Because they didn’t like her. I think a lot of women face that, in general. A lot more than men. Black women really face it. We are always overly-sanctified in movies. Overly-nurturing, overly-sympathetic. And to find that place where you’re “messy” is very difficult. It’s even difficult to negotiate it with a director on set. When you’re coming from a place of being a trained actor and you understand human behavior, and you understand that it’s your job to create a human being, that when people sit in the audience they just need to connect the dots. They need to be able to say this is a person that’s driven by needs and this is what drives them. And it’s hard to create that human being because there’s so many facets of your personality they want to stifle because of this [gestures to the skin of her arm]. (watch)