Viola Davis will receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes in January. She will be honored during the group’s 2025 gala hosted by Nikki Glaser on Friday, January 3, at the Beverly Hilton.
Davis won a Supporting Actress Oscar and a Golden Globe for 2016’s Fences and has three other career nominations: Best Actress for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020) and The Help (2011) and Supporting Actress for Doubt (2009). She also has six other Golden Globe noms, most recently for 2022’s The Woman King.
Davis’ long list of big-screen credits also include The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, Air, The Suicide Squad, Widows, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby films and Solaris. She also has done plenty of TV work including the lead in How to Get Away with Murder along with Live in Front of a Studio Audience, The First Lady, Peacemaker, United States of Tara and a series-regular stint on CBS’ City of Angels
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“Viola Davis is a luminary whose profound talent has continuously shifted the lens through which we see and understand film,” Golden Globes president Helen Hoehne said. “Presenting her with the 2025 Cecil B. DeMille Award is not only an honor but a reflection of our admiration for her relentless dedication to her craft and her monumental impact on the industry. Viola’s courage in portraying complex, powerful characters has broken barriers and paved new paths, making her an emblem of excellence and an ideal recipient of this prestigious award.”
The Cecil B. DeMille Award was created in 1952 to honor the eponymous director and has been presented to 69 Hollywood’s greats ranging from Walt Disney and Jack Warner to Sidney Poitier and Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand to Oprah Winfrey. The prize was not awarded in 2024.