Halle Berry – the first and, thus far, only African-American actress to win a Best Actress Oscar – is calling the Academy Awards diversity crisis "heartbreaking".
The star's own triumph at the 2002 Oscars for Monster's Ball was a groundbreaking moment – but 14 years later no actresses or actors of colour earned nominations.
On stage today (February 2) at the 2016 Makers Conference, Berry expressed regret that her Oscar win didn't open the door for more African-American stars.
"Honestly, that win almost 15 years ago was iconic," she said (via Deadline). "It was important to me, but I had the knowing in the moment that it was bigger than me.
"I believed that in that moment, that when I said, 'The door tonight has been opened,' I believed that with every bone in my body, that this was going to incite change because this door, this barrier, had been broken."
Berry then looked back on her famed 2002 Oscars acceptance speech where she called her win "so much bigger" than herself.
What to Read Next
"To sit here almost 15 years later, and knowing that another woman of colour has not walked through that door, is heartbreaking," she said today.
"It's heartbreaking, because I thought that moment was bigger than me. It's heartbreaking to start to think maybe it wasn't bigger than me. Maybe it wasn't.
"And I so desperately felt like it was… And as filmmakers and as actors, we have a responsibility to tell the truth. And the films, I think, that are coming out of Hollywood aren't truthful.
"And the reason they're not truthful, these days, is that they're not really depicting the importance and the involvement and the participation of people of colour in our American culture."
Spike Lee, Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith have all confirmed that they will boycott this year's Oscars – while the Academy has also come under fire from George Clooney and Lupita Nyong'o.
The Academy has since vowed to double its female and diverse members by the year 2020.
The 88th Academy Awards will air on ABC from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on February 28.
Justin is a freelance entertainment journalist and writer. He first joined Digital Spy as a freelance entertainment reporter in 2010 and also worked as a sub-editor for the brand, serving as Night News Editor from 2016 to 2024. Over more than a decade, Justin has covered numerous major entertainment events from the US and has interviewed a wide-ranging group of public figures, from comedian Steve Coogan to icons from the Star Trek universe, cast members from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and reality stars from numerous Real Housewives cities and the Below Deck franchise. Justin has also been on the ground to cover major pop culture events like the Star Wars Celebration and the D23 Expo. He's written for titles across the Hearst network, plus the likes of CBR and Us Weekly.
