Halle Berry Says Oscar Win Was Meaningless

In her off-the-cuff acceptance speech, Halle Berry dedicated her 2002 Oscar for best actress to "every nameless, faceless woman of color that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened." But 15 years later, the opportunities are not at all like she imagined they would be. In fact, Berry says her win essentially did nothing to promote diversity in Hollywood. When only white actors scored Oscar nominations for acting roles in 2016, "I really thought, 'Wow, that moment really meant nothing. It meant nothing,'" Berry tells Teen Vogue, per Vanity Fair.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has since made strides to include more women and minorities—it's expected to reveal its "most diverse" class of new members Wednesday, reports the Los Angeles Times—but Berry is still the only black woman to have won the best-actress Oscar. To change that, "I want to start producing more. I want to start making more opportunities for people of color," who "only have a chance to win based on how much we're allowed to put out," she says. "We have to start telling stories that include us." This should help convince studios: A new study finds films with diverse casts pull in the most money, per the LA Times. (More Halle Berry stories.)