Halle Berry is "eternally miffed" that no Black woman has won Best Actress since her

To say that the Academy has historically been biased against people of color would be a major understatement. Since the Oscars were founded in 1929, only 23 Black people have won across all four acting categories, and the numbers really aren’t better in the other categories either. While this is obviously an egregious statistic, it’s somehow not as staggering as the fact that Halle Berry remains the only Black woman to ever win Best Actress, which she was awarded in 2001 for Monster’s Ball. 

“I’m still eternally miffed that no Black woman has come behind me for that best actress Oscar, I’m continually saddened by that year after year,” Berry said in a recent interview with Marie Claire. “And it’s certainly not because there has been nobody deserving,” she added, pointing to Andra Day in The United States vs. Billie Holiday and Viola Davis in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, both of whom were nominated in 2020, as examples of performers who deserved the win. No Black women have been nominated since, and Michelle Yeoh remains the only woman of color to win the award (for Everything Everywhere All at Once) since Berry. 

Speaking to Variety in 2020, Berry again expressed that “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.” In the same interview, she also referred to her own win as “one of my biggest heartbreaks” because it didn’t break any of the glass ceilings it should have.

“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?'” she said. “Just because I won an award doesn’t mean that, magically, the next day, there was a place for me. I was just continuing to forge a way out of no way.”

According to filmmakers like Ava DuVernay and A Thousand And One director A.V. Rockwell, part of the issue is that it’s so hard for movies by Black creators to get seen by the Academy at all. “It can be very disheartening and draining because it’s like we’re not even given a shot,” Rockwell said in the lead-up to this year’s Oscar ceremony. “Even with all the love that’s out there, I think people are kind of set in only certain movies, or only certain filmmakers, getting a chance to be a part of certain conversations.” Hopefully, this will be the year that someone else finally walks through the door that Berry opened.