That’s it. No more playing around.
No more chips and sweets, ladies. It’s time to throw down your snacks and get in the gym because Viola Davis is yet again serving serious arm inspiration, and we’re feeling motivated. You will be, too.
The 59-year-old Oscar winner, who turns 60 this August (come on Leo twin!), stepped on the red carpet for the London premiere of her new film G20 in a black two-piece ensemble that put her arms on display, and she looked amazing. The trapezius, deltoid, tricep, and bicep muscles were poppin’, and so was her smile.
The stunner has always been fit and fabulous. But she looked her most powerful for her role in The Woman King, a project that allowed her to embrace the “muscular and thicker” body that she once wished was lithe and lean while playing General Nanisca.
“All of a sudden, with this role, my muscles, my arms, my thick legs, my heavy voice were perfect. I felt unapologetic about it. I celebrated it physically in every way,” she told PEOPLE in 2022. “Sometimes you do a movie and then it’s over. And sometimes, you do a movie and it shifts you a little bit. You’re a little bit better for it. And that’s what it’s been like for me with the training.”
If you follow Davis, you know she doesn’t play in the gym. She often works out with her hubby, Julius Tennon, who is 71 (but you could never tell). In one clip she shared earlier in the year, she integrated plenty of arm movements, including chest presses, tricep extensions, and punching with small dumbbell weights during a session with her man.
“Just keeping up with my 71 yr old love!!!!” she wrote as a caption to the clip. “I’m serious….and I feel good.”
Tennon is a perfect workout partner for her, as they constantly root for each other. They’ve been married for more than 25 years. She shared a video of him getting it in at their home gym after having double knee replacements with the caption, “My baby training like a boss!!!”
She’s also said that age ain’t nothin’ but a number when it comes to health and fitness. Her workouts are no joke, as her dedication to movement has only increased as she ages, ducking and dodging the type 2 diabetes that has been prevalent in her family. She once told Prevention that she works out “really, really hard,” in her mind, harder than most 20-somethings.
“I do a lot of planks, a lot of step-ups, a lot of medicine ball exercises—like 15- to 20-pound balls. I run. I have a Peloton bike. I have a Boflex machine. What don’t I do?” she told the publication.
It’s all paying off as Davis continues to show up at every red carpet looking healthy and happy. We love to see it. Now, where are those dumbbells?
