Viola Davis | Entertainment News, Photos, and Videos

The late Chadwick Boseman stars in the new trailer for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which he filmed prior to his death.

The film, adapted from August Wilson‘s play, will appear in select theaters in November and hit Netflix on December 18.

Here’s a plot summary: “Tensions and temperatures rise over the course of an afternoon recording session in 1920s Chicago as a band of musicians await trailblazing performer, the legendary “Mother of the Blues,” Ma Rainey (Viola Davis). Late to the session, the fearless, fiery Ma engages in a battle of wills with her white manager and producer over control of her music. As the band waits in the studio’s claustrophobic rehearsal room, ambitious trumpeter Levee (Boseman) – who has an eye for Ma’s girlfriend and is determined to stake his own claim on the music industry – spurs his fellow musicians into an eruption of stories revealing truths that will forever change the course of their lives.”

The movie was directed by George C. Wolfe and adapted for the screen by Ruben Santiago-Hudson.

One of Chadwick‘s Black Panther co-stars spoke out about the idea of filming without him.

Netflix has debuted the first look at the upcoming movie Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which is the final film that Chadwick Boseman made before he tragically passed away this summer.

The movie is based on the play by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson and stars Viola Davis in the title role. The film was directed by George C. Wolfe, adapted for the screen by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, and produced by Denzel Washington.

Here is the synopsis: Tensions and temperatures rise over the course of an afternoon recording session in 1920s Chicago as a band of musicians await trailblazing performer, the legendary “Mother of the Blues,” Ma Rainey (Davis). Late to the session, the fearless, fiery Ma engages in a battle of wills with her white manager and producer over control of her music. As the band waits in the studio’s claustrophobic rehearsal room, ambitious trumpeter Levee (Boseman) – who has an eye for Ma’s girlfriend and is determined to stake his own claim on the music industry – spurs his fellow musicians into an eruption of stories revealing truths that will forever change the course of their lives.

Colman Domingo, Glynn Turman, Michael Potts, Taylour Paige, and Dusan Brown also star in the movie.

Netflix will be releasing the film on December 18 and it’s expected to get a big awards season campaign. Many are already predicting that Chadwick will win a posthumous Oscar for his work in the movie!

A brand new teaser for the upcoming movie The Suicide Squad has been revealed and the entire cast and their characters were unveiled in the clip!

The teaser was played during the film’s panel at DC Fandome, a live-streamed event for the DC Universe.

Some of the stars from the 2016 movie Suicide Squad are reprising their roles in the new film, including Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag, and Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang.

“The Suicide Squad is by far the most fun I’ve ever had making a movie,” director James Gunn told fans during the panel. “The character I was most excited to write for was Harley Quinn there’s a chaotic, trickster god [element] to her.”

The film’s producer Peter Safran said that the project is “a total reboot… everything you would hope from a James Gunn script and I think that says a lot and that promises a lot and I know that we will deliver a lot.”

Click inside to the full list of actors and characters, plus the teaser… More Here! »

Viola Davis has bought the house she was born in and the surrounding land, and she has announced this news on her 55th birthday. If you don’t know, Viola was born on a former plantation in South Carolina.

“The above is the house where I was born August 11, 1965. It is the birthplace of my story. Today on my 55th year of life….I own it….all of it,” Viola posted on Tuesday (August 11) to mark her birthday.

She added a quote to her tweet, which read “May you live long enough to know why you were born” which is a Cherokee Birth Blessing.

Viola spoke about the home back in 2016, telling EW, “I wasn’t on it long, because I was the fifth child, and so we moved soon after I was born. I mean, I went back to visit briefly but still not aware of the history. I think I read one slave narrative of someone who was on that plantation which was horrific. 160 acres of land, and my grandfather was a sharecropper. Most of my uncles and cousins, they’re farmers. That’s the choice that they had. My grandmother’s house was a one room shack. I have a picture of it on my phone because I think it’s a beautiful picture.”

Viola Davis recently spoke about why she felt like she “betrayed” herself by taking on this movie role.

Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion‘s sexy “WAP” music video dropped on Friday and has been on everyone’s mind since – and some fans had some fun with the visual, photoshopping Viola Davis in!

The 54-year-old How To Get Away with Murder star spotted a photoshopped image of her in the video, in Kylie Jenner‘s role, and quickly shared the image on social media, asking “”Who did this? 😩😭😍.”

That’s not the only edit that Viola appears in.

Some other fans inserted Viola‘s Annalise Keating character into the video, dancing in one of the mansion doors that Cardi and Megan open in the video.

“💃🏿💃🏿💃🏿 #HowToGetAwayWithWAP,” she captioned that edit.

Cardi then saw the edits herself, and approved.

“I’m so fan out right now ya don’t even know,” Cardi reacted.

If you didn’t see, Cardi defended her decision to include Kylie in the video. See what she said here…

Viola Davis is continuing to explain why she regrets taking on the role of Aibileen Clark in The Help.

During a new interview with Vanity Fair, the 54-year-old Oscar winner said that she took the role just because she was “hoping to pop.”

“I was that journeyman actor, trying to get in,” Viola shared.

“I cannot tell you the love I have for these women, and the love they have for me,” Viola said, referring to director-writer Tate Taylor and her cast. “But with any movie—are people ready for the truth?”

Viola then explained that many movies only cater to white audiences.

“Not a lot of narratives are also invested in our humanity,” Viola explained. “They’re invested in the idea of what it means to be Black, but…it’s catering to the white audience. The white audience at the most can sit and get an academic lesson into how we are. Then they leave the movie theater and they talk about what it meant. They’re not moved by who we were.”

Viola then said that she feels like she “betrayed” herself by starring in The Help.

“There’s no one who’s not entertained by The Help,” Viola said. “But there’s a part of me that feels like I betrayed myself, and my people, because I was in a movie that wasn’t ready to [tell the whole truth].”

This isn’t the first time Viola has talked about her regret for taking on her role in The Help. Back in a 2018 interview, Viola said the movie didn’t let the voices of the maids be heard.

One of Viola Davis‘ past interviews from two years ago is viral.

In the interview, the 54-year-old actress opens up about the difference in pay between white and black actresses, and how Hollywood often refers to as the “black Meryl Streep.”

“I got the Oscar, I got the Emmy, I got the two Tonys, I’ve done Broadway, I’ve done off-Broadway, I’ve done TV, I’ve done film, I’ve done all of it,” Viola says. “I have a career that’s probably comparable to Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Sigourney Weaver. They all came out of Yale, they came out of Julliard, they came out of NYU. They had the same path as me, and yet I am nowhere near them, not as far as money, not as far as job opportunities, nowhere close to it.”

Viola continues, “But I have to get on that phone and people say, ‘You’re a Black Meryl Streep…There is no one like you.’ Okay, then if there’s no one like me, you think I’m that, you pay me what I’m worth. You give me what I’m worth.”

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Meryl has a net worth of about $150 million, while Viola is worth $12 million.

If you missed it, it was announced that Viola will be playing this major public figure in an upcoming series!