Viola Davis made Annalise Keating unforgettable in How to Get Away with Murder.
Her career has continued to expand beyond that role. In 2026, she published Judge Stone with James Patterson, while remaining active as an actress and producer. Her forthcoming screen work includes Children of Blood and Bone.
So what happened to Viola Davis after her defining television years? She moved through major films, completed the rare EGOT collection of awards, and increasingly helped create stories through writing and production.
Annalise Keating marked a television breakthrough
Davis’s performance in How to Get Away with Murder brought a historic Emmy win in 2015. She became the first Black woman to win the lead actress award in a drama series.
Her JuVee Productions biography places that achievement alongside acclaimed film work. She earned Oscar nominations for Doubt and The Help before winning for Fences.
Annalise gave her a complicated leading character over an extended television run. The role’s prominence can make it seem like a dividing line, but Davis’s film and stage accomplishments were already substantial.
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Her career after the series continued across different kinds of characters, including action roles and stories she helped bring to the screen.
Finding Me made her own story part of the work
Davis’s memoir, Finding Me, asked her to use her voice differently. Instead of interpreting another person’s experiences, she wrote about her own life and then narrated the audiobook.
In a Recording Academy interview before the 2023 Grammys, she described honesty as a central purpose of the book. She wanted to acknowledge the people in her life and tell her story without leaving it unexplored.
“I really found that thing that I love to do,” she said of her work.
The audiobook subsequently won the 2023 Grammy for audiobook, narration, and storytelling recording. With her Emmy, Oscar, and Tony wins, Davis had achieved EGOT status.
The accomplishment was also rooted in a deeply personal project. Her own history became the material, requiring both emotional openness and the practical discipline of a recorded performance.
G20 placed her at the center of an action thriller
Davis took the lead in G20, released on Prime Video on April 10, 2025. She played President Danielle Sutton, caught in a violent attack on an international summit.
Amazon’s official release guide describes Sutton trying to evade capture, protect her family, and confront the threat.
The role placed Davis inside an action story with immediate physical stakes. For audiences who mainly associate her with courtroom scenes or intimate family drama, it offered a different kind of leading performance.
It also supplied a straightforward answer to any suggestion that she had stopped acting. Her career continued to include substantial film roles after the television character that introduced her to many viewers.
Readers interested in another actress moving into new kinds of later-career film roles can explore Demi Moore’s recent work.
Judge Stone brought a new collaboration in 2026
Judge Stone, co-written with James Patterson, went on sale on March 9, 2026. The official publisher listing identifies it as a novel, marking a move from memoir into fiction.
The courtroom story centers on Judge Mary Stone in Alabama. Its central case involves a doctor prosecuted after providing an abortion, placing the judge within a difficult moral and legal conflict.
A Radio Times interview with the authors explored the collaboration and its contemporary themes. The book uses fictional characters and courtroom drama to examine questions about power, responsibility, and conscience.
Writing a judge may sound familiar for an actress known for Annalise Keating, but this was a different creative task. Davis was helping construct the character and her world on the page.
The novel also extends the storytelling work that began with her memoir. She now has published work that speaks in her own voice and work that creates a fictional life.
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Producing gives her another role in telling stories
Davis and her husband, Julius Tennon, founded JuVee Productions. The company’s official account describes their work together across theater, television, and film.
That partnership means some of Davis’s professional activity happens before an audience sees a performance. Developing and producing projects are part of her career alongside acting in them.
Her upcoming acting credits include Children of Blood and Bone, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood. Paramount’s official film page confirms Davis in a cast that also includes Thuso Mbedu, Amandla Stenberg, Damson Idris, Regina King, and Idris Elba.
The fantasy adaptation is a 2027 release. As of November 2026, it is upcoming, so it belongs to the next chapter of her film career.
Davis’s combination of performance and creative responsibility has parallels with Jodie Foster’s work in acting and directing.
Viola Davis is still building her career
Her recent work spans an action thriller, a published novel, and a forthcoming fantasy film. Behind those projects sits a continuing production partnership and an established stage and screen career.
The awards explain the scale of her recognition. The projects explain what she is doing with it.
For viewers catching up after How to Get Away with Murder, there is no single disappearance to account for. Davis has continued acting while taking on more ways to shape the stories audiences encounter.