As expected, Viola Davis won the best supporting actress Oscar for her performance in Denzel Washington’s Fences.
“You know there’s one place where all the people with the greatest potential are gathered, and that’s the graveyard,” Davis began her acceptance speech with fervor. “People ask me all the time — What kind of stories do you want to tell? And I say, exhume those bodies. Exhume those stories.”
She continued, “I became an artist and thank God I did because we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life.”
The actress then thanked playwright August Wilson, “who exhumed and exalted the ordinary people,” and director-producer Denzel Washington, “O captain, my captain… Thank you for putting two entities in the driver’s seat — August and God. They served you well.”