Halle Berry Denise Truscello/Getty Images
Halle Berry still stands by her iconic speech at the Razzies, 20 years later.
Since 1981, the Golden Raspberry Awards have functioned as an anti-awards show, handing out honors for the biggest failures, flops and missteps in the movie industry. In 2004, Berry, 57, made the rare decision to accept her award for Worst Actress in person, after starring in the box office bomb Catwoman.
“I’d written [my speech] within an inch of my life. I put a lot of thought into how I could do it in a fun way and let everyone know that I didn’t take it that seriously,” she told Entertainment Weekly as part of the 20th anniversary oral history of Catwoman. “You can never take away my Oscar, no matter how bad you bash me! If you say I earned this, all right, I’ll take this, too. You accept the wonderful things people say, and accept when they don’t say wonderful things.”
Berry appeared at the ceremony carrying her Best Actress Oscar for 2001’s Monster’s Ball and roasted Warner Bros. for tanking her post-Oscar cachet.
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“No, I don’t have to give this back. It’s got my name on it,” Berry said of her Oscar, before targeting the movie studio. “You don’t win a Razzie without a lot of help from a lot of people, so please indulge me … I want to thank Warner Bros. Thank you for putting me in a piece of s—, God-awful movie. It was just what my career needed, you know? I was at the top, and Catwoman just plummeted me to the bottom. Love it!”
In her interview with EW, she said that Warner Bros. knew of her intention to give a speech at the Razzies.
“The studio knew what I was going to do. I told them I wanted to take the piss out of it and laugh at it,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a God-awful film, but I was at the Razzies, so I had to do what they do; I s— on it because they s— on it! I tried to be one of them.
With 20 years of hindsight, Berry thinks the movie’s reputation is unearned. She said she holds no hard feelings for the team behind the movie and still enjoys the finished product.
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“I knew how much hard work went into it, not only on my part but on everybody’s part. You never set out to make something critics decide to pan,” Berry said. “I marveled at the fact that we did it. I got to see my version of Catwoman. I didn’t have any negative feelings.”
Berry also shared that no amount of negative reviews could knock her career off-course.
“It didn’t derail me, because I’ve fought as a Black woman my whole life. A little bad publicity about a movie? I didn’t love it, but it wasn’t going to stop my world or derail me from doing what I love to do,” she said.
