During last night’s Oscars, Viola Davis and Mahershala Ali stole the show and made history.
Davis won Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her role in Fences, making her the first black actress to take home three major acting awards (she’s previously won both a Tony and Emmy award), and she stole the show with her acceptance speech.
“People ask me all the time, what kind of stories do you want to tell, Viola? And I say, exhume those bodies, exhume those stories, the stories of the people who dreamed,” she said. “I became an artist, and thank god I did, because we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life. So here’s to August Wilson, who exhumed and exalted the ordinary people.”
“I want to thank my teachers, my professors,” he said during his acceptance speech. “One thing they consistently told me […] was that it wasn’t about you. It’s not about you, it’s about these characters, you are a servant. You’re in service to these stories and these characters.”
He also gave a shoutout to his wife and his four-day-old daughter: “I want to thank her for being such a soldier through this process, and carrying me through it all.”
In addition to their respective history-making wins, the 89th Annual Academy Awards marked the most African-American actors to win in a single night since 2007.
