Viola Davis

Viola Davis wins SAG Award PROVIDENCE JOURNAL

Published: January 25, 2015 09:40 PM

Viola Davis accepts the award for outstanding performance by a female actor in a drama series for “How to Get Away with Murder” at the 21st annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Shrine Auditorium on Sunday in Los Angeles.


Associated Press

Viola Davis won for outstanding performance by a female actor in a drama series at Sunday night's Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Davis won for her performance in ABC's "How To Get Away With Murder."

Davis thanked the producers of the legal drama "for thinking that a sexualized, messy, mysterious woman could be a 49-year-old, dark-skinned African American woman who looks me."

Davis, who grew up in Central Falls, has won two Tonys, the last in 2010 for her role in August Wilson's "Fences." And in 2012, she received the Pell Award for Lifetime Achievement from Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, the company she joined after she graduated from Rhode Island College. Davis received Oscar nominations for her roles in the films "The Help" and "Doubt."

She has been a supporter of education in Central Falls, raising and donating money for the city's Adams Memorial Library, the Central Falls High School chess team and drama club, and the Segue Institute for Learning, a charter school.