Meryl Streep & Viola Davis Are Fast Friends Since Meeting In 2008 Film 'Doubt'

Close friends Meryl Streep and Viola Davis

Moving towards the stage to accept her award for best supporting actress at Sunday night's Oscars, Viola Davis stopped to give Meryl Streep an affectionate kiss and hug. Vanity Fair writes that their friendship is one of the most public and vocally supporting relationships in Hollywood. 

Streep and Davis first worked together in the 2008 film 'Doubt'. Accepting her 2009 SAG award for best actress in 'Doubt', Streep channeled all her diva powers, calling out "the gigantically gifted Viola Davis." Raising her arms to the heavens, Streep implored the audience, "My God, somebody give her a movie!". Three years later Davis starred in 'The Help' and was nominated for Best Actress, only to lose to . . . Meryl Streep, who won for 'The Iron Lady'. Such an event would dampen the enthusiasm of most friendships, but not these two women.

The next morning Streep donated $20,000 in Davis' name, shared between the Segue Institute for Learning, an in-need charter school in Davis's hometown of Rhode Island and a college-prep program Upward Bound.

When Davis received her Hollywood Walk of Fame star in January 2017, Streep opened the event, with choice comments about her friend. “Viola Davis is possessed. She is possessed to the blazing, incandescent power. She is arguably the most immediate, responsive artist I have ever worked with,” Streep said. She then went on to describe Davis’s ability to be “so alive she glistens” and to “write paragraphs with her eyes.”