‘I was still black the next morning’: Halle Berry says Oscar win didn’t change her career | film

Halle Berry, the only black woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress, says her 2002 win “didn’t necessarily change the course of my career.”

Speaking to The Cut’s Monica Corcoran Harrell to promote new drama Crime 101, Perry said she expected Lee Daniels’ Monster’s Ball win would mean “there’s going to be a script truck showing up outside my front door.”

However, Perry said the number of projects she has been offered has remained stable due to ongoing uncertainty in the industry about how the stories of people of color are told.

“Even though I was very proud of it, the next morning I was still black. And the directors were still saying, ‘If we put a black woman in this role, what does that mean for the whole story?’ Should I play a black man? So it’s a black film. Black films are not sold abroad.”

Similar sentiments were expressed last year by Lupita Nyong’o, who won a supporting actress Oscar in 2014 for her performance in Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave.

Speaking to CNN, Nyong’o said the range of roles offered to her was frighteningly small. “After you win that Oscar, you’ll think, ‘Oh, I’ll get leading roles here and there,'” she said.

Instead, she said the conversations usually begin: “Oh, Lupita, we’d like you to do another movie where you’re a slave, but… this The time you are on a slave ship. These are the kind of offers I was receiving in the months after I won the Oscar.

So far, more than 30 black actors – including Sinners’ Michael B. Jordan – have been nominated for Best Actor, with five winning, while 16 Black actresses are nominated for Best Actress.

Twenty-five black actors competed for the supporting actor award — with seven wins — including Sinners’ Delroy Lindo. His co-star, Wunmi Mosaku, is one of 32 black actresses nominated for supporting actress, with 10 wins. This year’s favorite is Teyana Taylor from One Battle After Another.