Halle Berry, who won an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1992 for her leading performance in Monster’s Ball, admits she was surprised when the roles dried up after she won the award for Best Actress.
Berry, 53, was the first — and to this day, the only — Black actress to win the award in that category. Berry’s mailbox grew bare when she failed to land a slew of high-profile assignments.
“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,’” Berry revealed as she struggled to land roles that White actresses were routinely handed.
“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.”
It’s possible that it influenced her decision to star in Catwoman, widely regarded as the worst superhero film of all time. Berry seems unfazed by the fact that he was stomped to death by reviewers in that picture. In reality, at the 2005 Golden Raspberry Awards, the 53-year-old accepted the Worst Actress Award in person. Despite the fact that the picture swept the major Oscars, earning Worst Picture, Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay, Berry has no regrets about pursuing what is perhaps her biggest bag.
“For me, it was one of the biggest paydays of my whole life, which, there’s nothing wrong with that,” she said. “I don’t want to feel like ‘Oh, I can only do award-worthy stuff.’ What is an award-worthy performance?”
