Viola Davis already knows how she’s going to celebrate if she becomes an EGOT winner.
The “Woman King” star just snagged her first Grammy nomination for her 2022 memoir “Finding Me.”
If she wins, the actor will join the elite group of EGOT — Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony — winners as its 18th member.
At the 13th annual Governors Awards at Los Angeles’ Fairmount Century Plaza last Saturday, Davis spoke about her recent nomination and what it would mean to achieve the EGOT honor.
“Felt pretty good,” Davis told Entertainment Tonight about earning the nomination for her audiobook, which she narrated.
She landed the nod for best audio book, narration and storytelling recording alongside nominees Mel Brooks (who already has an EGOT), Jamie Foxx, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Questlove.
Davis has a lead actress Emmy for “How to Get Away With Murder,” a supporting actress Oscar for “Fences” and two Tonys for “Fences” and “King Hedley II,” bringing her a step away from attaining EGOT status.
If she were to score her first Grammy this year, she would join the ranks of only 17 people who have ever earned the EGOT, including John Legend and Jennifer Hudson.
It would also make her the third Black woman — alongside Whoopi Goldberg and Hudson — in that rare company.
“It is a surreal title to have,” Davis told the entertainment outlet about the potential of earning the EGOT. “And I thought about it, and I thought to myself, ‘If I achieve that, I may take myself out to dinner.’”
“And you know, I don’t celebrate my wins,” Davis added. “But I’d celebrate that win.”
Speaking about what motivates her in her decades-long Hollywood career, the actor said at the 2011 Elle Women in Hollywood, “What keeps me in the business is hope.”
“And that’s the hope that women of color are also a part of the narrative, that our stories are just as potent, because we also have the power of transformation. We also have the power to be quirky, and sexy, and different, funny, heartfelt and all of those things,” she added at the Elle tribute event.
Coming up for Davis, she’s set to play a warped villain in Lionsgate’s “Hunger Games” prequel, “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.”
The dystopian action-adventure also stars previously announced cast members Rachel Zegler (“West Side Story”) as Lucy Gray Baird, Tom Blyth (“Billy the Kid”) as a young Coriolanus Snow, Peter Dinklage (“Game of Thrones”), Jason Schwartzman (“Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”) and Hunter Schafer (“Euphoria”).
“The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is scheduled to open in theaters on Nov. 17, 2023.
