Viola Davis' Emotional SAG Awards Acceptance Speech Is Perfect: Read It Here

How to Get Away With Murder's leading lady thanked Shonda Rhimes "for thinking that a sexualized, messy...woman could be a 49-year-old dark skinned African American woman"

How to get away with the perfect acceptance speech.

In a category so filled with talent that an additional nominee was added, How to Get Away With Murder's Viola Davis took home the Actor for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series at the 2015 SAG Awards on Sunday, beating House of Cards' Robin Wright, Downton Abbey's Maggie Smith, Homeland's Claire Danes, The Good Wife's Julianna Margulies, and Orphan Black's Tatiana Maslany.

And, per usual, Davis delivered an inspiring and rousing acceptance speech that would make her fierce HTGAWM character Annalise Keating proud.

"All right, when I tell my daughter stories at night, invariably a few things happen. Number one, I use my imagination. I always start with life and I build from there," she said. "And then the other thing that happens...she always says, 'Mommy can you put me in the story?' It starts from the top up, so I'd like to thank Paul Lee, Shonda Rhimes, Besty Beers...and Pete Nowalk…for thinking that a sexualized, messy, mysterious woman could be a 49-year-old dark skinned African-American woman who looks like me."

Rhimes did not attend the SAG Awards ceremony, but tweeted about her star's win soon after. "Finally got little ones settled, snuck away to TV, quick fast forwarded to Viola's category and...YES!!! @violadavis #HTGAWM #beautiful." Beers, an executive producer on HTGAWM, added, "CONGRATULATIONS to the AMAZING @violadavis!!!"

At the beginning of How to Get Away With Murder's season, controversy broke out after The New York Times' published a piece claiming the show ignored "the narrow beauty standards some African-American women are help to" by casting Davis "who is older, darker-skinned and less classically beautiful" than Kerry Washington or Halle Berry.

While Davis never directly addressed the article, she seemed to reply via Twitter, writing, "You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise!!!"

Davis closed out her speech with an heartfelt message to her family, saying, "And thank you to all the people who love me exactly the way how God made me. And that's my beautiful husband, Julius, my four-year-old daughter at home, Genesis, and my mother, Mary Alice. Thank you so much."

And an added bonus for HTGAWM fans? Davis' co-star Matt McGorry presented her with her Actor!