NEW: Viola Davis To Give Providence College Commencement Address
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
RI's own Viola Davis will come home this spring and speak to PC's graduates. Photo: Art Streiber/AUGUST
The ceremony will take place at 11:00 a.m. at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence.
Davis, who will receive an honorary doctorate in fine arts, will be among five distinguished individuals to be bestowed honorary degrees. The other four are PC alumni with distinct lifetime achievements.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTDavis played Aibileen Clark in the 2011 film The Help, set in 1960s Jackson, Miss. The film chronicles the relationship among three different and extraordinary women who build an unlikely friendship around a secret writing project that breaks societal rules and puts them all at risk. Davis won a Screen Actors Guild Award for “Best Actress” for her role in the film, in addition to Academy Award and Golden Globe nomination in the same category.
Davis also was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for her 11-minute-long performance as Mrs. Miller in the 2008 film Doubt, which also starred Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
The actress started her career on the stage, as a member of the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence from 1988 to 1995. Davis moved to New York and won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play as well as a Drama Desk Award for her portrayal of Tonya in King Hedley II in 2001.
She won a second Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for her 2010 role in Fences alongside Denzel Washington — the second African-American woman to win that honor.
Well-known roles
Davis co-starred with Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures film that opened in January. The film is an adaptation of the book by Jonathan Safran Foer about a boy who finds a key that belongs to his father, who was killed in the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001.
At Providence College, Extremely Loud was the centerpiece of the first-ever Freshman Common Reading Program in 2011.
This year, Davis is starring with Maggie Gyllenhaal and Holly Hunter in Won’t Back Down, a film highlighting the work of two women who want to make a difference at a local school.
Davis also has had notable roles in films such as Eat, Pray, Love; Solaris; Antwone Fisher; Traffic; and Out of Sight.
The actress has graced the small screen as well. She played an eccentric artist on the Showtime drama United States of Tara, a lawyer on Century City, and a nurse on City of Angels with Blair Underwood and Hill Harper, as well as recurring roles on Law & Order: SVU and Jesse Stone, a CBS miniseries starring Tom Selleck.
Rhode Island roots
Davis was born on her grandmother’s farm in St. Matthews, S.C., the second youngest of six children. Her mother, Mae Alice, was a maid, factory worker, and homemaker and her father, Dan Davis, was a horse trainer. The family moved to Central Falls, R.I., when she was 2 months old.
She is a graduate of Central Falls High School, where she first became involved in the arts and which she credits with her love of stage acting. As a teenager, Davis won a scholarship to the Young People’s School for the Performing Arts in West Warwick, R.I., after director Bernard Masterson recognized her talents.
Davis earned a bachelor’s degree in theatre in 1988 from Rhode Island College, which awarded her an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree in 2002. The actress also graduated from The Julliard School.
The actress has helped keep Rhode Island in the headlines. During her acceptance speech for Best Actress at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in January, The Providence Journal reported that she offered a message for children growing up in her hometown.
“I have a special, special note to the kids of Central Falls, Rhode Island … to dream big and dream fierce,” Davis said.
In November, she was one of several celebrities, including Alec Baldwin, to donate funds to keep the library in Central Falls open. The city filed for bankruptcy last year.
Davis lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.
