Viola Davis gave a moving speech as she accepted her first Oscar last night.
The actress won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Fences.
Take to the stage in a floor-length red gown, Viola struggled to hold back tears as she celebrated the industry and asked people to remember the people who didn’t get to follow their dreams.
“Thank you to the Academy. You know there’s one place that all the people with the greatest potential are gathered, one place, and that’s the graveyard,” she said.
Emotional: Viola was in tears
“People ask me all the time, ‘what kind of stories do you want to tell, Viola?’ And I say exhume those bodies, exhume those stories. The stories of the people who dreamed big and never saw those dreams to fruition; people who fell in love and lost.
“I became an artist, and thank god I did, because we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life. So here’s to August Wilson who exhumed and exalted the ordinary people.”
Viola was greeted with applause from the audience after her first Oscar win.
