The 2008 drama received five Oscar nominations, including for both Davis and Streep.

Viola Davis had to call out Meryl Streep for forgetting her line in Doubt scene: ‘Say the f---ing line’

The 2008 drama received five Oscar nominations, including for both Davis and Streep.

By Marina Watts

Marina Watts

Marina Watts is a news writer for with seven years experience covering entertainment, pop culture and celebrity news. Her previous work appears in PEOPLE, Bustle and Newsweek.

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March 17, 2026 1:12 p.m. ET

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Viola Davis on 'Good Hang'; Meryl Streep. Credit:

Good Hang with Amy Poehler/YouTube; Taylor Hill/Getty

- Viola Davis recalled working with Meryl Streep on *Doubt* and how Streep kept forgetting her line during their scene.

- When Davis eventually told Streep about the mishap, Streep took the fumble in stride.

- Years later, Davis paid tribute to Streep at the 2017 Golden Globes when the latter received the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and Streep returned the favor when Davis received the award in 2025.

Viola Davis is getting candid about the importance of line memorization.

During an appearance on Tuesday's episode of Amy Poehler's *Good Hang* podcast, the *Fences** *star got candid about working with Meryl Streep on *Doubt* while discussing the craft of acting.

"Looking at your body of work and your life is that you just have never shied away from hard work," Amy Poehler said. "You've never run away from it." Davis thanked Poehler, noting that "memorizing is the least difficult part of acting."

"When you have another actor looking in your face and they're waiting for the line — now, I'm big with this is," Davis continued. "I did this with Meryl Streep in *Doubt*. "She had a line, I had a line, or whatever and then: nothing. I'm looking in her face nothing she's saying nothing, I'm saying nothing. Obviously someone dropped the line."**

She continued, "And then I realize she's the one who dropped the line. Meryl freaking Streep dropped the line."****"Oh my God, thank God," Poehler interjected.

Davis, who appears in one scene for around 10 minutes in *Doubt* opposite Streep, said that they went through three more attempts, but the three-time Oscar winner kept dropping the line.****"And in my brain I was like, 'Say the f---ing line!' But I can't tell Meryl Streep, 'You forgot the line, Meryl. You keep forgetting the line,'" Davis recalled. "And finally we did it. And she was like, 'Why does something feel off?' And I said, 'Because you you keep forgetting the line. You forgot the line, Meryl.'"

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But Streep had an affable response to the awkward situation, Davis said: "'Well, why didn't you say something?'"

Meryl Streep and Viola Davis in 'Doubt'.

Besides Davis and Streep, the 2008 drama also starred Amy Adams and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.

*Doubt *was nominated for five Oscars: Best Actress (Streep), Best Supporting Actor (Hoffman), Best Supporting Actress (for both Davis and Adams), and Best Adapted Screenplay for John Patrick Shanley, who adapted his own 2004 Pulitzer Prize-winning and Tony Award-winning play *Doubt: A Parable*.

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Davis and Streep's relationship extended beyond their time in *Doubt*. The pair became good friends, and in 2017, when Streep received the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes, Davis paid tribute to her by introducing the *Devil Wears Prada** *star. Streep returned the favor when Davis received the same award in 2025.**

In her 2017 intro, Davis recalled how when working on the set of *Doubt*, her husband used to ask if she told Streep "how much she means to" her, but she kept putting off the conversation.

"'Well you need to say something. You been waiting all your life to work with this woman,'" the Oscar winner recalled her husband telling her.**

"Never said anything. But I’m gonna say it now," Davis said at the 2017 awards show, closing out her moving speech.

"You make me proud to be an artist. You make me feel that what I have in me — my body, my face, my age — is enough. You encapsulate that great Emile Zola quote that, if you ask me as an artist what I came into this world to do, I, an artist, would say, I came to live out loud."

Check out the full interview between Amy Poehler and Viola Davis on *Good Hang *below.

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