She knows “How to Get Away with Murder,” but 50-year-old powerhouse actress Viola Davis is also an entrepreneur who played an R&B legend’s mother while becoming a rags-to-riches success story! Here are 10 things you don’t know about the badass who’s back on ABC prime time for a second season of playing legal eagle and cutthroat law professor Annalise Keating.
1. Viola was born at her grandmother’s house on a South Carolina plantation.
2. She’s believed in ghosts and witches since she was a kid. “I can’t shake it!” she says.
3. She studied drama at New York’s Juilliard School from 1989 to 1993.
4. She and actor producer husband Julius Tennon launched their own production company, JuVee Productions, in 2012.
5. She grew up in Rhode Island and “most of the time, the school lunch was the only meal I had.”
6. She’s been nominated for two Oscars — Best Supporting Actress for “Doubt” (2008) and Best Actress for “The Help” (2011). She won the 2015 Emmy for Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
7. Viola exposed her inner self by taking off her wig and revealing her naturally curly hair on “How to Get Away with Murder.”
8. She played James Brown’s mom in the 2014 movie “Get on Up.”
9. Viola once did such a bad job parking, a rude note saying, “May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits,” was taped to her windshield.
10. Her “first big superhero movie,” the DC Comics flick “Suicide Squad,” comes out August 2016.
