If anyone can act like she's having a good time, it's Viola Davis.
In the fall of 2015, the How to Get Away with Murder star won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Davis was nominated in the same category at the 2016 Emmys, though she no longer wanted to win after she arrived at L.A.'s Microsoft Theater.
Davis explained her rationale on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live! Thursday. "I knew I would have to get up on stage with that damn peanut butter on my Marchesa dress," she said, referring to the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches Jimmy Kimmel handed out that night. "I looked under my bag and I had big chunks of peanut butter. We ate the hell out of those things! I mean, I was sucking my fingers on those sandwiches. And I said, 'I'm not going to eat it,' because of the carbs. It's got to be at least 22 grams each, and that was it. That was the last thing I remember." The 51-year-old actress tries to avoid carbs when possible, she explained, but "it never works."
Like many nominees, Davis got nervous when her name was called. "People apparently think I have a hostile face. People mistake me for [How to Get Away With Murder's] Annalise Keating and [Suicide Squad's] Amanda Waller, so I have to smile. I have to overly smile. I have to smile as if I'm doing a Colgate commercial. Can I just tell you, I had about five hot flashes during the Emmy Awards? Smiling during a hot flash is a hard thing. It's like someone set you on fire for two minutes," she said. "Listen, they come in successions sometimes, so as soon as one is over then another one comes. Everyone else is like, 'It's freezing! It's freezing!' and you have sweat dripping—and then your name is not called. It's Tatiana Maslany and you're having a hot flash."
Davis appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! shortly after How to Get Away With Murder returned for its third season. At the end of the premiere episode, one of the characters was revealed to be dead—but his or her identify is, for now, a mystery. "I have to say I don't know what's going on, but I know what's going on," Davis said, as she's spoken with writers and producers about it. "When we shot the scene, I cried to a wooden dummy in the back of the ambulance, because we hadn't figured it out yet. I went to Julliard, baby! I know how to personalize that dummy!"
Kimmel asked his guest to spoil the surprise.
"If you pay me, I'll tell you," Davis said. "How much you make on this show?"