Ones to Watch: Viola Davis - page 2

10 months ago 13th Jan 11:16

Since then she has moved between television and small movie parts as well as working in the theatre, she won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play for her portrayal of Tonya in King Hedley II.

However it is her performance in Doubt, alongside Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman, as Mrs Miller that looks set to propel the forty three year old actress to greater stardom.

Set in 1964, St. Nicholas in the Bronx. A vibrant, charismatic priest, Father Flynn (Academy Award® winner Philip Seymour Hoffman), is trying to upend the schools' strict customs, which have long been fiercely guarded by Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Academy Award® winner Meryl Streep), the iron-gloved Principal who believes in the power of fear and discipline.

The winds of political change are sweeping through the community, and indeed, the school has just accepted its first black student, Donald Miller.

But when Sister James (Academy Award® nominee Amy Adams), a hopeful innocent, shares with Sister Aloysius her guilt-inducing suspicion that Father Flynn is paying too much personal attention to Donald, Sister Aloysius sets off on a personal crusade to unearth the truth and to expunge Flynn from the school.

Now, without a shard of proof besides her moral certainty, Sister Aloysius locks into a battle of wills with Father Flynn which threatens to tear apart the community with irrevocable consequence.

For her role a string of award nominations have come her way at the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild Awards as well as winning Best Breakthrough Performance at the National Board of Review USA as well as best Supporting Actress at the Black Reel Awards.

And off the back of this role she will next star in State of Play with Ben Affleck and Russell Crowe which is due out later this year.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw