Halle Berry is still the only Black woman to ever win Best Actress at the Oscars despite over 90 years of the Academy Awards.
Berry became the first Black woman to win a Best Actress Oscar in 2002 for her work on “Monster’s Ball”. The iconic actress was passed on at the Golden Globes, so she said she was under the impression that an Oscars win was out of the question.
“Back in those days, if you didn’t win the Globe, you really didn’t get the Academy Award. So I’d pretty much resigned myself to believing, ‘It’s great to be here, but I’m not going to win,'” Berry told the New York Times. “I don’t have any memory of it.
“I don’t even know how I got up there. It was totally a blackout moment. All I remember is Russell Crowe saying, ‘Breathe, mate.’ And then I had a golden statue in my hand, and I just started talking.”
Berry said in her acceptance speech that her winning was a sign that the door had opened for women of colour. Unfortunately, Berry remains alone among Black actresses to hold Oscars for Best Actress. While Berry finds it supremely disappointing, she is quick to remind others that awards are not the foundation of good art.
“It didn’t open the door,” Berry said. “The fact that there’s no one standing next to me is heartbreaking.”
“We can’t always judge success or progress by how many awards we have,” she concluded. “Awards are the icing on the cake… but does that mean that if we don’t get the exceptionally excellent nod, that we were not great, and we’re not successful, and we’re not changing the world with our art, and our opportunities aren’t growing?”
