Halle Berry Breaks Silence on Oscars Diversity Issue

Halle Berry sits on a panel on stage at the 2016 Makers Conference held at the Terrenea Resort on Tuesday (February 2) in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.

The 49-year-old actress, who was the first black woman to win the Oscar for Best Actress, was asked to comment on the diversity issue.

“Honestly, that win almost 15 years ago was iconic, it was important to me, but I had the knowing in the moment that it was bigger than me,” Halle said. “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 color 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. Maybe it wasn’t. And I so desperately felt like it was.”

“It’s really about truth telling,” Halle added. “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 color in our American culture.”

FYI: Halle is wearing a Camilla and Marc dress with Ashley Pittman bracelets and a Sylva & Cie ring.