In 2002, Halle Berry made history when she became the first Black woman to win the Oscars best actress award.
The star took home the big prize for her critically-acclaimed role in independent film, Monster’s Ball.
Two decades later, the actress says it’s ‘heartbreaking’ that she still remains the only Black woman to have bagged the prestigious award.
‘It didn’t open the door,’ she said in a new interview with The New York Times. ‘The fact that there’s no one standing next to me is heartbreaking.’
Halle also told the publication that the success and achievements of Black actresses should not be overshadowed by the lack of top awards.
‘We can’t always judge success or progress by how many awards we have,’ she said. ‘Awards are the icing on the cake.
‘They’re your peers saying you were exceptionally excellent this year, 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?’
When she accepted the award in 2002, she said in her speech: ‘This moment is so much bigger than me,’ before dedicating the win to Black female actors who had been nominated over the years, including Dorothy Dandridge, Diahann Carroll and Angela Bassett.
The now-55-year-old added: ‘It’s for every nameless, faceless woman of colour that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened.’
Halle made a risky career move when she took on the role in the 2001 film, because it contained an extended sex scene that required her to go topless for the second time that year.
It followed her appearance in action film, Swordfish, in which her nudity received backlash and was considered gratuitous.
In Monster’s Ball, the mother-of-two played Leticia Musgrove who fought to save her husband, played by hip-hop mogul Sean Combs aka P Diddy, who is serving time in a Georgia penitentiary, from execution after he is convicted of murder.
Leticia ends up having an affair with one of the corrections officers, played by Billy Bob Thornton.
‘Everybody told me when I said yes to that part that it was not a good move,’ she told Yahoo Entertainment last year.
‘Because of the nature of the sex scene and just the nature of the movie… many people said, “You could ruin your career”.’
The actress directed and starred in the Netflix film Bruised last year.
The 2022 Oscars take place in Los Angeles on Sunday.
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