Viola Davis just found herself one step closer to an exclusive award-winning circle.
The Suicide Squad star just secured her first Grammy award nomination in the Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording category for her 2022 memoir Finding Me. If she wins, Viola will join the small group of EGOT—Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony—winners as its 18th member.
Throughout her three-decade long career, the actress has picked up several awards—including two Tony Awards for her work on Broadway, one Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for How To Get Away with Murder and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, which she earned for the 2016 movie Fences. (Fun Fact: She won her second Tony in 2010 for the stage production of Fences.)
And several of her awards marked major milestones. Viola became the first actress of color to win the Emmy for Lead Actress in a drama in 2015, for her role as ruthless lawyer Annalise Keating in the ABC drama. She is also first Black performer to win the Triple Crown of Acting by winning a competitive Oscar, Emmy and Tony, a feat she accomplished in 2016.
And her Grammy win could make her the third Black woman—alongside Whoopi Goldberg and Jennifer Hudson—to win an EGOT.
"What keeps me in the business is hope," Viola said at the 2011 Elle Women in Hollywood event. "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."
Facing off against Viola for the Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording Grammy are Mel Brooks (who is already an EGOT winner), Jamie Foxx, Questlove and Lin-Manuel Miranda, who just needs an Oscar for his own EGOT.
The 65th annual Grammy Awards will be held on Feb. 5, 2023.