Halle Berry: Lack of diversity in Hollywood is 'heartbreaking'

The actress said it is heartbreaking that no black women have won Best Actress in the last 15 years
Rashid Razaq4 February 2016
The Weekender

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Halle Berry, the only black woman ever to have won a best actress Oscar, says she is heartbroken by the lack of diversity in Hollywood.

She is the latest celebrity to speak out about the race row engulfing this year’s Academy Awards. No black, Asian or Hispanic performers received a nomination in any of the acting categories.

Berry, 49, who won the Oscar for Monster’s Ball in 2001, said: “That win almost 15 years ago was iconic. 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.

“And to sit here almost 15 years later, and knowing that another woman of colour has not walked through that door, is heartbreaking.

“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.”

Berry did not say if she followed the lead of stars including Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith in supporting the boycott of this year’s Oscar ceremony on February 28.

But she blamed a shortage of “truthful” storytelling in Hollywood for the lack of on-screen diversity. She said: “And the reason they’re not truthful ... is that they’re not really depicting the importance and the involvement and the participation of people of colour in our American culture.

Oscar nominations 2016

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“When we really live up to our responsibility in Hollywood and challenge ourselves to be truthful and tell the truth with our storytelling, then people of colour will be there in a real competitive way and it won’t be about inclusion or diversity because if we’re telling the truth, that inclusion and diversity will be a by-product of the truth and will naturally be there.”

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which organises the Oscars, plans to double the number of women and people from ethnic minorities in its membership by 2020.

Berry’s remarks echo those of Mo’Nique, who won a best supporting actress Oscar for 2009 film Precious.

The singer and actress, 48, said: “How many stories have you read that a black actress signed a multi-million-dollar movie deal after winning the Oscar?

“When people ask me about Hollywood and racism, it’s not that there’s racism and they are horrible people. No. We’ve just been conditioned and it’s a tradition that it’s only been done this way.”

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