We Finally Understand Why Halle Berry Accepted Her Razzie Award
For any actor or filmmaker, winning an Oscar is the ultimate honor in the film industry. The polar opposite of the statuette, of course, is the Razzie award, which the Golden Raspberry Foundation has been dishonoring the worst in the mainstream film industry with since 1981. Most often, nominees and eventual "winners" — or "losers," depending on your point-of-view — won't even acknowledge they've been singled out by the Razzies, much less accept the award. Still, there have been a brave few performers like Halle Berry and Sandra Bullock who were willing to take their lumps with good humor.
Bullock's Razzie win for the comedy bomb "All About Steve" came in 2010, the same year she won her Best Actress Oscar for "The Blind Side." According to Entertainment Weekly, she showed up to the Razzie ceremony to accept her award with a red wagon containing "All About Steve" DVDs, and a playful challenge to any voting member of the organization to sit through the movie. "This is the deal we are going to make. Promise to watch the movie and really consider whether it was really and truly the worst performance," Bullock told Razzie members while accepting the award. "If you are willing to watch it, I will come back next year and give back the Razzie."
As memorable as Bullock's appearance was, Berry perhaps deserves bigger kudos because she turned up to claim her Razzie for Worst Actress, five years before that, in 2005, for "Catwoman." Now, as Berry enters another (more positive) awards season race in both the acting and directing category for her new drama "Bruised," she has revealed that accepting the award was about more than just fun and games.
Halle Berry wanted to prove that being an Oscar winner didn't make her better than anybody else
Berry, of course, made Academy Awards history in 2002 when she became the first Black woman to win Best Actress Oscar (per Biography) for her role in the drama "Monster's Ball." But in a business that has just as many lows as it does highs, it was only mere three years later when her role in the critically-lambasted superhero movie "Catwoman" earned her a Razzie. In a new video interview with Vanity Fair, Berry discussed why it was important to show up in person to accept the embarrassing dishonor.
"I went to the Razzie [Awards] because I feel like we all take ourselves so seriously. If we get an award, if we get the Oscar, we somehow are made to feel like we're somehow better than everybody else, but we're really not," Berry explained to Vanity Fair. "You were just chosen that year by your peers, and you were acknowledged for doing what they considered stellar work."
Halle Berry says it's important to be a 'good loser'
Halle Berry told Vanity Fair that winning an Oscar doesn't even make "better than the next person who didn't get that award." At the same time, Berry told the publication, winning a Razzie doesn't make you the worst, either: "If you find yourself face to face with a Razzie, does that mean you're the worst actor there ever was? Probably not. You just got the piss taken out on you that year by a group of people that can."
Ultimately, Berry said, her Razzies experience reaffirmed her mantra to "be a good loser."
"If I can show up to collect an Oscar when you're honoring me, I can certainly show up to collect a Razzie when you say, good try, but do better," Berry told Vanity Fair. "I always learned that if you can't be a good loser, then you don't deserve to be a good winner. So, I went there and made fun of myself."
Interestingly enough, Berry isn't ready to leave "Catwoman" in the dust quite yet, as she recently expressed how she'd like to direct a reboot of the DC Comics character, if the opportunity ever arose. In the meantime, you can see the actor's directorial debut, "Bruised," which is streaming exclusively on Netflix.