Viola Davis appeared in a television series.
Viola Davis . She played supporting and minor roles in several films and television series in the late 1990s and early 2000s , including the films Kate & Leopold ( 2001 ) and Far from Heaven ( 2002 ) , and the television series Law & Order : Special Victims Unit . Since 2014 , Davis has played lawyer Annalise Keating in the ABC television drama , How to Get Away with Murder , and in 2015 she became the first black woman to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series .