As Halle Berry is being celebrated for all of the work she has done in Hollywood, the actress has shared her disappointment with the Academy Awards in recent years.
Twenty years ago, Berry made history by winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Monster’s Ball and has since been the only woman to do so.
While on ABC’s Soul of a Nation, Berry said, “It was surprising. Because I thought they were going to just back up the truck and drop the job offers off at my house right? When you have a historic win like that, you think, ‘Oh, this is going to fundamentally change.’ It did fundamentally change me, but it didn’t change my place in the business overnight. I still had to go back to work. I still had to try to fight to make a way out of no way.”
She went on to say when asked about the success of future Black actresses since making her now-iconic acceptance speech at the award ceremony;
“I’ve been asked this question so many times as if I should have the answer, but I don’t. But I will say this, I do feel completely heartbroken that there’s no other woman standing next to me in 20 years.”
She added, “I thought, like everybody else, that night meant a lot of things would change. That there would be other women. I thought I would have the script truck back up to my front door and I’d have an opportunity to play any role I wanted. That didn’t happen. No other woman is standing there.”
Do you agree that more Black actresses should be winning major awards at these ceremonies?