Halle Berry on being the only Black woman to win Best Actress Oscar: “The system is not designed for us”
Halle Berry has opened up about being the only Black woman to win the Best Actress Oscar in the history of the Academy Awards.
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In the new Apple TV+ documentary, Number One On The Call Sheet, Berry opens up about what happened since she won the Best Actress Oscar in 2002 for her role in Monsters Ball. Since her win, no other Black women have won the award.
“It’s forced me to ask myself, did it matter?” Berry says in the show (via The Hollywood Reporter). “Did it really change anything for women of colour? For my sisters? For our journey?”
The documentary explores the 13 Black women who have been nominated for the award since Berry’s win, but who have failed to take home the award.
Opening up about the chances of a Black woman winning the award previously, Berry said: “A few years ago, I was at the table with Andra Day, and I was across the room from Viola Davis, and they were both nominated for stellar performances [Day for The United States vs. Billie Holiday and Davis for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom], and I felt 100 per cent sure that this was the year one of them was gonna walk away with this award. For equally different and beautiful reasons, they both deserved it, and I thought for sure.”
However, neither won, with Frances McDormand instead winning for Nomadland.
Berry added: “The system is not really designed for us, and so we have to stop coveting that which is not for us. Because at the end of the day, it’s ‘How do we touch the lives of people?’ and that fundamentally is what art is for.”
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Elsewhere in the documentary, Taraji P. Henson and Whoopi Goldberg also open up about the lack of Black best actress Oscar winners.
“Wait a minute, none of us were good enough?” Goldberg says in the footage. “Nobody? In all of these people, nobody?… What are we missing here? This is a conversation people have every year.”
Goldberg won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress and is one of ten Black women to have done so. In the footage from the documentary, Henson went on to open up about why she thinks there are more supporting actress wins for Black women.
“I don’t think the industry really sees us as leads, you know?” she explained. “They give us supporting [ awards] like they give out candy canes. That just — I don’t know what to do with that. Because what are you saying to me?”
Last year, Berry said that being a Black woman means she doesn’t have the “luxury” of being able to “just sit and field Oscar buzz movies” because options “are so limited” for Black women in Hollywood.
“As a Black woman, I have never had the luxury of just doing Oscar-worthy performances and movies. I don’t even know what that is. My options at times are so limited, and that’s the reality of it,” she told The Hollywood Reporter last autumn. “So I don’t have the luxury to just sit and field Oscar buzz movies. That wasn’t my reality, and it’s still not my reality.”
She continued: “I won that Oscar 23 years ago now, and it was about working,” she said. “It was about loving the craft. It was about growing and taking risks and chances. So I don’t have the luxury to just sit and field Oscar buzz movies. That wasn’t my reality, and it’s still not my reality.”