Multi-award-winning actress Halle Berry, has expressed her sadness at being the first and only black woman to win an Oscar award for Best Actress.
She described her 2002 Oscar win for her role in Monster’s Ball as one of her “biggest heartbreaks.”
Berry made this revelation in a recent interview with Variety. She explained how she had hoped that other African American women would have won the award by now but she’s disappointed that she remains the only one.
“I think it’s largely because there was no place for someone like me,” the actress said.
“I thought, ‘Oh, all these great scripts are going to come my way; these great directors are going to be banging on my door,'” Berry said. “It didn’t happen. It actually got a little harder. They call it the Oscar curse. You’re expected to turn in award-worthy performances.”
“I thought Cynthia [Erivo, the star of ‘Harriet’] was going to do it last year. I thought Ruth [Negga, nominated for 2016’s ‘Loving’] had a really good shot at it too,” Berry said. “I thought there were women that rightfully, arguably, could have, should have.
“I hoped they would have, but why it hasn’t gone that way, I don’t have the answer. It’s one of my biggest heartbreaks,” Halle Berry added.
“The morning after, I thought, ‘Wow, I was chosen to open a door.’ And then, to have no one …”
“I question, ‘Was that an important moment, or was it just an important moment for me?’ I wanted to believe it was so much bigger than me. It felt so much bigger than me, mainly because I knew others should have been there before me and they weren’t.”
