Halle Berry has said the time since her historic Oscars win in 2002 for Monster’s Ball has “forced” her to accept the “system is not really designed for” for Black female actors.
In the Apple TV+ documentary Number One on the Call Sheet, Berry questioned if her win really changed anything for her community.
“It’s forced me to ask myself, did it matter?” Berry asked. “Did it really change anything for women of color? For my sisters? For our journey?”
Berry, 58, is still the only Black person to have won the best actress Oscar in the 97-year history of the awards.
Cynthia Erivo’s nomination this year for her role as Elphaba in Wicked was only the second time a Black woman had received two nominations for best Oscar. She had also been nominated in the category in 2020, for playing Harriet Tubman in Harriet.
Viola Davis was nominated for the best actress award in 2012 for portraying Aibileen Clark in The Help and then in 2021 for playing Ma Rainey in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.
In all, only 13 Black women have been nominated for the award since the Oscars first began to be presented in 1929.
The documentary shows a montage of Black actresses losing out to white women at the Academy Awards over the years and actors Whoopi Goldberg, Viola Davis, Taraji P Henson, and Angela Bassett all make appearances.
“I will never forget that night. I think I cried, I think I may have dropped to the ground, because you need to see someone that looks like you walk the path to give you the hope and the courage to walk the path,” Henson said of Berry’s win.
“I don’t know what the problem is but that does not sound right to me, because I have seen amazing work by black women in those leading positions.
“And you can ask Halle, she’s p****d off too that she’s the only one.”
Berry brought up the 2021 ceremony where two Black actresses – Davis and Andra Day for The United States vs Billie Holiday – were nominated for the best actress award.
Both lost that night to Frances McDormand for her role in Nomadland. It was McDormand’s third win in the category.
“A few years ago,” the Die Another Day actor recalled, “I was at the table with Andra Day, and I was across the room from Viola Davis, and they were both nominated for stellar performances, and I felt 100 per cent sure that this was the year one of them was gonna walk away with this award.
“For equally different and beautiful reasons, they both deserved it, and I thought for sure.”
Berry said Black women need to stop “coveting” an Oscar because it is not “designed for us”.
“The system is not really designed for us, and so we have to stop coveting that which is not for us,” she said.
“Because at the end of the day, it’s ‘how do we touch the lives of people?’ and that fundamentally is what art is for.”
Goldberg, who was nominated for best actress in 1986 for her debut role in The Color Purple and won the best supporting actress Oscar in 1991 for Ghost, asks how the Academy found no other Black actress “good enough” to win all these years.
“Wait a minute, none of us were good enough? Nobody? In all of these people, nobody?” she questioned in the documentary. “What are we missing here? This is a conversation people have every year.”
Henson said she doesn’t believe Hollywood sees Black women in lead roles. “I don’t think the industry really sees us as leads, you know?” she said. “They give us supporting [actress awards] like they give out candy canes. That just – I don’t know what to do with that. Because what are you saying to me?”
Hattie McDaniel was the first Black woman to be nominated for and win an Oscar in 1940 – for best supporting actress for her role in Gone with the Wind – but she sat at a segregated table at the ceremony.
No other Black woman would win an Oscar until Goldberg in 1991, followed by Berry in 2002. Jennifer Hudson won the best supporting actress award in 2007, as did Mo'Nique in 2010, Octavia Spencer in 2012, Lupita Nyong’o in 2014, Viola Davis in 2017, Regina King in 2019, Ariana DeBose in 2022, Da'Vine Joy Randolph in 2024, and Zoe Saldaña in 2025.
“Unfortunately, you have to deal with what is already out there for you, and what’s out there for you is not what’s out there for Meryl Streep,” said Davis.
In September last year, Berry said she was “eternally miffed” that she was still the only Black woman to ever win an Academy Award for best actress.
“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,” she told Marie Claire. “And it’s certainly not because there has been nobody deserving.”
In 2020, the actor expressed her dismay at the lack of Black female winners as she told Variety of the landmark moment: “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.
“I thought Cynthia [Erivo] was going to do it last year. I thought Ruth [Negga] had a really good shoot at it too.
“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.”
