<p id=”par-1_46″><a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/tag/halle-berry/”>Halle Berry</a> famously <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/oprah-winfrey-worried-winning-oscar-changed-halle-berry.html/”>won an Oscar for Best Actress</a> thanks to her starring role in <em>Monster’s Ball</em>. However, she felt the odds were significantly stacked against her that year. So much so that she’d already accepted that she’d end up losing the Oscar to her competition.</p>
<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-how-halle-berry-reacted-to-her-oscar-win”>How Halle Berry reacted to her Oscar win</h2>
<figure class=”wp-block-image size-full” id=”emb-1″><img decoding=”async” src=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Halle-Berry-Oscars.webp?strip=all&quality=80″ alt=”Halle Berry holding up an Oscars trophy at the Academy Awards.” class=”wp-image-3746436″><figcaption class=”wp-element-caption”>Halle Berry | Steve Granitz/WireImage</figcaption></figure>
<p id=”par-2_85″>Winning an Oscar was both a historic and shocking moment for the <em>X-Men </em>star. She became <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/queen-latifah-originally-offered-halle-berrys-oscar-winning-role-monsters-ball.html/”>the first Black woman to score the prize</a>, an accolade she was almost certain she wouldn’t walk away with. At the time, Berry conceded that the odds of winning were in actor Sissy Spacek’s favor. The veteran star won the Golden Globe for Best Actress for the 2001 film <em>In the Bedroom</em>. As Berry pointed out, being a Golden Globe winner was often a prelude to winning the Oscar.</p>
<p id=”par-3_43″>“Back in those days, if you didn’t win the Globe, you really didn’t get the Academy Award,” Berry once told <a href=”https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/24/movies/halle-berry-best-actress-oscar.html”>The New York Times</a>. “So I’d pretty much resigned myself to believing, ‘It’s great to be here, but I’m not going to win.’”</p>
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<p id=”par-4_36″>After she won, however, Berry knew that she couldn’t just coast through her career after Oscars success. If anything, she was willing to do even more diverse parts to avoid what happened to past Oscar winners.</p>
<p id=”par-5_60″>“How many Oscar winners just fall off into obscurity? It’s like they get the Oscar curse, and I was determined not to have the Oscar curse hit me,” Berry once told <a href=”https://www.today.com/popculture/halle-berry-claws-her-way-top-wbna5463612″>Today</a>. “Winning the Academy Award was just the beginning for me, for my career and all the fun and meaningful and deep and lighthearted things I want to play.”</p>
<p id=”par-6_23″>But at the same time, Berry did expect her Oscar win to make nabbing the meaty film roles she wanted a bit easier.</p>
<p id=”par-7_86″>“It was surprising,” she said in an interview with <a href=”https://ew.com/movies/halle-berry-bruised-cover-story/?utm_medium=browser&utm_source=ew.com&utm_content=20210811&utm_campaign=1259740″>Entertainment Weekly</a>. “Because I thought they were going to just back up the truck and drop them 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.”</p>
<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-why-halle-berry-was-hurt-by-the-2016-oscars”>Why Halle Berry was hurt by the 2016 Oscars</h2>
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<p id=”par-8_66″>Although Berry’s win was considered monumental at the time, she questioned if it resulted in any real change in the film industry. She especially felt bothered by the 2016 Oscars, where there was considerable backlash against the ceremony for not nominating any actors of color that year. In a 2017 interview with <a href=”https://www.teenvogue.com/story/halle-berry-in-conversation-with-elaine-welteroth-at-cannes-lions-2017″>Teen Vogue</a>, she felt that particular Oscar night rendered her victory null and void.</p>
<p id=”par-9_29″>“I sat there and I really thought, ‘Wow, that moment really meant nothing. It meant nothing. I thought it meant something, but I think it meant nothing,’” she said.</p>
<p id=”par-10_22″>On the other hand, the 2016 Oscars did inspire Berry to be even more proactive about making change in the film industry.</p>
<p id=”par-11_72″>“<a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/halle-berry-says-her-oscar-win-was-one-of-her-biggest-heartbreaks.html/”>I was profoundly hurt by that</a>, and saddened by that,” Berry continued. “It inspired me to try to get involved in other ways, which is why I want to start directing. I want to start producing more. I want to start making more opportunities for people of color. I have conversations more deeply with Academy members, and I’m trying to figure out how to help and add more diversity to the Academy.”</p>