Viola Davis named Best Supporting Actress for ‘Fences’ at 2017 Oscars
Actress Viola Davis has been honored with an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in “Fences,” at the 89th Annual Oscars tonight, Sunday, February 26, 2017, at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, California. The yearly Academy Awards honor the best in motion pictures for the prior calendar year. The 89th Annual Academy Awards ceremony was televised live on ABC and was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.
In “Fences,” Denzel Washington directed and stars in this adaptation of August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, which centers on a black garbage collector named Troy Maxson in 1950s Pittsburgh. Bitter that baseball's color barrier was only broken after his own heyday in the Negro Leagues, Maxson is prone to taking out his frustrations on his loved ones. Both Washington and co-star Viola Davis won Tonys for their performances in the 2010 revival of the play. Stephen Henderson, Jovan Adepo, Russell Hornsby, and Mykelti Williamson round out the supporting cast.
This is the first Oscar win and third nomination for Viola Davis. Her previous nominations were for:
[if !supportLists]· [endif]2012: Best Actress for her performance in “The Help”
[if !supportLists]· [endif]2009: Best Supporting Actress for her performance in “Doubt”
“Fences” is rated PG-13 for thematic elements, language and some suggestive references and has a run-time of 139 minutes.