Halle Berry made history in 2002 when she became the first black woman to win the Oscar for Best Actress.
However, two decades on, no other African-American thespian has scored the prize.
The “X-Men” star, 55, looked back on the evening and admitted that she doesn’t think much progress has been made for actresses of color.
“Back in those days, if you didn’t win the Globe, you really didn’t get the Academy Award,” Berry told the New York Times recently.
She added, “So I’d pretty much resigned myself to believing, ‘It’s great to be here, but I’m not going to win.’ “
Sissy Spacek won the Golden Globe that year for her turn in the film “In the Bedroom.” Berry received the Academy Award in 2002 for the drama “Monster’s Ball,” a gripping tale of a grieving mother and widow.
“It didn’t open the door,” Berry continued. “The fact that there’s no one standing next to me is heartbreaking.”
The “Swordfish” star said, “We can’t always judge success or progress by how many awards we have.”
“Awards are the icing on the cake — they’re your peers saying you were exceptionally excellent this year,” she told the outlet. “But does that mean that if we don’t get the exceptionally excellent nod, that we were not great, and we’re not successful, and we’re not changing the world with our art, and our opportunities aren’t growing?”
Last year’s Oscars ceremony had two black women nominated for their performances — Viola Davis for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and Andra Day for “The United States vs. Billie Holiday.”
But this year’s show does not have any black women nominated for Best Actress.
At the time of her win, Berry said in her moving speech, “This moment is so much bigger than me. This moment is for Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll. It’s for the women that stand beside me, Jada Pinkett, Angela Bassett, Vivica Fox. And it’s for every nameless, faceless woman of color that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened.”
Berry also recalled to the New York Times the emotions she was feeling that fateful night. “I don’t have any memory of it,” she noted. “I don’t even know how I got up there. It was totally a blackout moment. All I remember is Russell Crowe saying, ‘Breathe, mate.’ And then I had a golden statue in my hand, and I just started talking.”