Viola Davis

I always talk to all the crew. I always make it pleasant. I always nurture a relationship that makes people feel like they're important, like they're a part of the collaboration. I feel that way about the young actors on set. I don't talk to them like I'm the mentor; I talk to them like they're my peers. And I learned that from Meryl Streep.

I know that love is real when it's not convenient, when it's not selfish, when it's challenged, sometimes even if it's not reciprocated.

I can't deal with actors! I can't deal with myself. We're neurotic and miserable ... I love doing what I'm doing, but while I'm doing it, I'm miserable.

I love Wal-Mart. You can put that down. I love Wal-Mart. My husband and I hang out there.

What it meant for me to win the Emmy is I found it. It's not just the award. It's what it's going to mean to young girls - young brown girls, especially. When they saw a physical manifestation of a dream, I felt like I had fulfilled a purpose.

People don't understand that when you come into any theatrical experience, you've got to come locked and loaded, that you're a part of the experience, too. You can't come with your arms crossed. Be open to it.

I definitely have a happy marriage and family life.

You can't be perceived as 'the black actress who doesn't get the same kind of roles as the white actress.' You gotta run the same race. You gotta give the same quality of performances. You gotta have the same standard of excellence, even though people know that you're coming to the race in a deficit. That's just what life is about.

In life, you know, they do this in focus groups; if you were in such and such circumstance, what would you do? Well, you never know what you're going do unless you're faced with it.

It became motivation as opposed to something else - the thing about poverty is that it starts affecting your mind and your spirit because people don't see you. I chose from a very young age that I didn't want that for my life. And it very much has helped me appreciate and value the things that are in my life now because I never had it.

I cannot believe my life. I just can't. I'm so blessed.

My grandmom worked as a maid for most of her life, and she worked in the tobacco and the cotton fields, whatever she could get.