- Halle didn't deserve the Oscar. Between the two, Viola is the real actress.
- Viola is the better actress. And Halle has used really poor judgment post-Oscar win. Halle is the one getting magazine covers, though.
- Halle did win the National Board of Review for Monster's Ball
- Viola Davis is an actress. Halle Berry is a self-absorbed bitch.
- Viola has the face of a character actress. She gets offered the roles that call for a real woman, while Halle gets "Catwoman". Nobody would believe Halle as the maid in "The Help", even in 1960 a woman with her looks would have had better options.
The real question is why Halle isn't being offered more glamor-gal and girlfriend roles. Too old? Too crazy?
- As an Oscar winner it should be customary that Halle get all the top scripts FIRST.
Whatever she passes on, should then go to Viola.
That is how the system worked for decades in Hollywood. Why change now?
- [quote] Nobody would believe Halle as the maid
But she has played a waitress many times and pulled it off.
- Because Halle Berry is a crazy bitch and nobody wants to be around her, would be my guess.
- Catwoman
- And a crackhead several times, too, R7. Don't forget the crackhead roles.
http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lx9d3vWU1x1qdlgvfo1_400.jpg
Halle convincingly played crackheads in Jungle Fever and Losing Isaiah
- Yeah I'd like to see Viola Davis play a crackhead. The only reason Viola is getting so much acclaim for The Help, is that she has played a maid so many times in her career, she could do it in her sleep.
- Halle should have been offered the lead role in The Help before Viola. She is an Oscar winner after all.
- Halle Berry is well-known to be a demanding, crazy bitch in the Industry. Viola Davis has a reputation of being a total professional.
- Old double standard. When a man is demanding he is seen as forceful. But when a woman does it, she is labeled a bitch.
- "The only reason Viola is getting so much acclaim for The Help, is that she has played a maid so many times in her career, she could do it in her sleep."
Since you're so familiar with every single role Ms. Davis has played on stage and on film, name me five other "maid roles" she's played.
Can't do it, can you, you racist troll.
- In Halle Berry's case, R14, it is not a double standard. Her demands are ridiculous and she is totally unprofessional. Ask anyone who has ever been on a set with her.
R13
- If Halle should get the plum Oscar roles and not the glam movie star roles, should Viola Davis have been given the X-men gig?
- Far From Heaven
Gracie & Glorie
Without a Trace episode
Amy & Isabelle
New York Undercover episode
R11%20knows%20his%20shit
- Would "The Help" have been more successful with Halle as the star?
I%20wonder...
- Who is this nutjob Halle Berry troll?
Honey, Davis is a seasoned actress on stage and screen, which is more than Berry can say, even with her Oscar.
Berry has model-type looks, which can be a blessing or a curse. Yes, she can play a waitress, but that doesn't make her suitable for THE HELP. And considering how successful that film was vs. Berry's last film which came and went in a flash, R19's question seems very stupid.
- In what world does the Oscar winner get offered roles first? What is that rule? Because Mira Sorvino is asking for enforcement.
Seriously, it's about who is best for a role.
And, by the way,Halle, is of mixed race, and looks it. Viola is black. That also plays a role, though if I were a casting director I'd want the more interesting actor and that would be Viola.
- Viola has an Oscar nomination (and will soon get her second nomination) and she has won 2 Tony Awards. What is with this Halle troll trying to make it sound that Viola is second rate actress? The films she has been in have recived better reviews than thos of Halle. Its not that I don't like Halle, she's OK. I just don't understand the negativity about Viola.
- Halle is a better actress than people give her credit for. She was sensational in the Dandridge biopic, and deserved the Emmy hands down that year. She was also good in the Zora Neale Hurston tv movie a couple of years back. She wasn't good in MONSTERS BALL, but that was the filmaker's fault for trying to make such a hateful bitch sympathetic.
Viola is terrific, but Halle is nothing to write off.
- Because by far Viola is a much better actress than the plastic "Stacy Doll" Berry. It was a total fluke that she won an Oscar! Patently it was a calculated move on the Oscar voters to show political correctness and award the top acting honors to two black actors in the same year. I'm waiting for the two asians or hispanic actors to win one for the Gipper.
- I thought Halle was very good in Monsters Ball and in Dorothy Dandridge. She has serious issues. She is more than difficult.
Viola Davis is a wonderful actress. IMO, she should have won her Oscar for her turn in Doubt. That one scene with Meryl Streep was a tour de force.
I think it is foolish to compare them. They are two distinctly different actresses.
- [quote] I think it is foolish to compare them.
They are the two top black actresses working today.
- Light skin is right! Dark is not! Theres the difference ignorant whites! No fuck off!
- What is more distressing to me is that the OP (and the OP's repeated posts at 3, 6, 7, 11, 12, 14 and 18) suggest the racist belief that all Black roles are the same. Certain roles go to certain actresses because they are right for the role - not based on skin pigmentation.
According to this warped sense, then all roles for white women should go to Meryl Streep (since she can tackle any nationality). Poor Helen Mirren should just hang it up.
The only actor who may get first-refusal for certain roles now is Peter Dinklage. There are just not a lot of other dwarfs in Hollywood now.
- Where is this notion coming from that Viola Davis is getting all these scripts taken from Halle Berry? Her imdb page says otherwise.
Halle's problem, among others, is that the projects she's chosen and celebrity life she's courted affects how she's perceived. There's a reason it would be hard to cast her as a nun, or a maid, or even the mother in DOUBT. You'd be thinking "STAR" not character in those parts, not to mention the range an actor can bring to a part. Much in the same way it would be hard to see Brad Pitt cast as a priest or a brain surgeon.
As for Black actresses, there are just as many talented women in that age range who don't get the work either. Halle's not that special.
- Berry can be good if you give her decent material and the director is skilled enough to guide her along the way. (She gave a much better and believable performance in the tear-jerking melodrama Losing Isiah than she did in Monsters Ball.) And she also delivered in the Dorothy Dandridge bio movie and Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Having said that: she's a better actress than Viola Davis. Davis has this commanding presence on screen that Berry lacks (even with Berry's great beauty). I think a lot of that has to do with the fact Davis is a skilled theatrical actress, and the moment she makes an entrance onscreen, the other actors often have to careful or she will act circles around them (much like she did on Law & Order: SUV when she played a Defense Attorney). Viola Davis is in the same class as her other contemporaries, Angela Bassett and Alfre Woodard, where even with terrible or mediocre material they can still do wonders with a limited, one-dimensional role (e.g., any of the Tyler Perry movies all three were in where the screenwriting was subpar yet they all delivered solid performances).
Every decade there is always one black actress that wins all the important roles and awards. In the 80s it was Whoopi Goldberg, the 90s it was Angela Bassett, 00s was Halle Berry and now this decade appears to be Viola Davis. (In the 70s it was Cicely Tyson.) I'm happy for Viola Davis and I hope if she gets nominated and win the award that will give her better roles that can showcase her range.
- [quote] Having said that: she's a better actress than Viola Davis.
Sorry, meant to say she's NOT a better actress than Viola Davis.
R30
- OP is either trolling, or tongue-dangling retarded, or Halle's manager?
Must%20be%20one%20of%20the%20three
- Oh, what's that thing called? You know, where the person asking a question doesn't so much want a reply as he wants to make a point with his question? It will come to me, I'm sure, won't it?
- What about Latina's or Asian's, always black or whites.
- Viola stole my career.
Regina%20Davis
- oops.
Taylor.
- How terrible to hear that designers didn't even offer Viola any dresses.
I'm sure they'll be contacting her now.
- Viola Davis gave more of a supporting performance in The Help. Does everyone agree?
- [quote]Viola Davis gave more of a supporting performance in The Help. Does everyone agree?
No. She narrated the film and both her and Emma Stone were the leads in the movie.
- [quote]According to this warped sense, then all roles for white women should go to Meryl Streep (since she can tackle any nationality).
Which is basically what already happens for women's parts over 50.
Glenn
- "Shouldn't all the tops scripts be sent to Halle first?"
NO. Halle Berry may have won a very undeserved Oscar, but her career has been dormant for a long time now. Plus, she has the looks and figure of a model, which limits the types of roles she can play. I thought she was ludicrous in "Monster's Ball"; here she was, this hard luck woman living in poverty and despair and she looks like a fucking model! Of course she had nondescript hair and shabby clothes, but it was plain to see she was quite the babe. Any woman who looked like that would have men falling all over her; no woman who looked like that would be living the life she was stuck with. And the dark-skinned child actor who played her poor, overweight son didn't look like he was her distant cousin, much less her child. I didn't buy her for a minute as a mother, much less the mother of a child who looked like that. "Monster's Ball" was such a stupid, shitty movie.
- Sing it Glenn (r40)!
- Because OP Viola Davis is a character actress. Halle, while very beautiful, is always beautiful. Viola can look older and frumpier, yet still glam it up like she did at the Globes.
- As many have noted, Viola is a superior actress. Mystery solved.
- Viola can play the Magical Negro (like Morgan Freeman) and Halle cannot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro
- Because Viola Davis has range. I've seen her convincingly play cop, gangster's wife, spymaster, drug addict and astronaut/scientist. Halle Berry is beautiful and she hits her marks, but when she tries for any intensity, she just gets shrill. I wish Berry could conquer her demons and settle down to be the contented trophy wife of a producer, because I don't think her career will last much longer, but I suspect she's going to spiral down the drain.
- The whole 'You are too beautiful' for the role in Monsters Ball was a line Halle heard when she expressed interest for the part. She had to fight and fight hard for the part.
After weeks of badgering she finally got a meeting, and was told to her face she was too pretty for part. Her response?
"The character is a working-class woman, a woman down on her luck, down on her life. Why couldn't she be beautiful? Are you implying that all poor people are ugly, that they looked different from other people, that they had to conform to a certain type? Don't you have relatives who are working poor, down on their luck, or perhaps even on drugs? Weren't some of them pretty? What makes you think this woman has to look a certain way?"
- R15 I'm waiting for your apology
- R41 nails it. Halle's character must have been dumb as shit. She could have gotten a waitressing job in Hotlanta and be married to a pro athlete or some other hotshot within a year.
- You've proved yourself to be a lunatic on this thread, r49. You don't deserve an apology from anyone. YOU should apologize for the ridiculous comment about Davis playing the role in her sleep.
- I'm one of the 4 people who liked Berry in Monster's Ball and even think she deserved the Oscar. But no, she's just nowhere near Viola's league.
I agree with whoever said that for the Davis fans it has nothing to do with wanting a black actress to win, or calling others who don't like her racist.
She really just was that amazing, many people loved that performance. If she didn't live up to the hype, nobody here would bother with her.
- How many Asian actors have one the Oscar for acting? I'll wait.
- A couple in supporting categories I think R52, one from The Killing Fields and Sayonara or something.
- yep Hanig Ngor and Myosho Umecki
- Who says Viola can't be glamerous??? Look at this pic. She's giving major glamour.
http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/65859672.html
- Mean While....Black Actors are struggling to find suitable work.While we compare and contrast.SUPPORT!Whose Blog is this anyway...Think about it!
THEBLACK1
- INNNteresting r46... Because even Viola doesn't agree with you as she complains and complains. She isn't very likeable. I watched the whole hour... Not a very likeable person!
Yep Asian have one, for playing complex characters, especially in Woody Allen movies, as you know Woody makes movies full of black asian latino etc. Asians are either running from bombs in Vietnam, or filing nails, or kung fu fighting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il4JEPW7huo&feature=relmfu
- More Viola!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScX8T7J42F0&feature=relmfu
- Is the fact that Halle has a white mom, and grew up with a white women's world view,thus she is acting like a (haughty) white actress would.
However, because she visually looks African American,she is called crazy, bitch, etc....
- I liked Halle in Monster's Ball but she is one crazy and nasty bitch.
- I actually like Halle and loved her in Monster's Ball. The whole "make me feel good" scene wasn't her fault, it was the fault of the director.
And, as someone who has been called incredibly handsome my whole life, but who doesn't have a great career or a rich older partner to support me, us pretty people can be poor too.
That said, Davis acts circles around Berry. She deserves the best scripts.
One%20of%20the%20four%20DLers%20with%20model%20looks
- Viola mentions the dilema she and Halle Berry face in the Newsweek roundtable.
I'm suprised no one has started a separate thread on this discussion:
http://www.lipstickalley.com/f15/what-charlize-theron-doesn-t-get-about-black-hollywood-364377/
- It would be unique for Hollywood to finally realize that, at any given moment in time, more than one African-American female does exist.
- If Viola wins the Oscar she will have to start fighting Halle for scripts. They will both be up for the same parts.
- “I’m a 46-year-old black woman who really doesn’t look like Halle Berry, and Halle Berry is having a hard time,” said Davis.
- They first I noticied Viola was in Proof and they nade her look very unattractive but in Extremely Loud and Increbibly Close also this award season she looks hot...
- Maybe it is because you have no imagination, R46. She was excellent in Monster's Ball, completely looked the part and put her craziness to work very well in the role. Her Oscar was well deserved.
- When I saw Monsters Ball I thought why would anyone have a ugly wig ?
- Halle was awful in Monster's Ball. Didn't believe her for a minute.
Viola, Taraji Henson or Regina King would have so much better in that role.
SBF
- Halle Berry is currently trending on yahoo NOT Viola Davis
- And your point is?? I'm sure Kim k is also trending higher then Viola. Even though I thought she deserved her Oscar gimme Viola. LOVE her..
White Devil
- R70, you do realize publicity whores and money is what gets Yahoo to list someone as trending.
Davis doesn't need yahoo for publicity right now, but thanks for playing.
- R3, she also won the SAG Award.
- Viola Davis on Nightline talking about Racism in Hollywood
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/violas-story-15544603
- "The character is a working-class woman, a woman down on her luck, down on her life. Why couldn't she be beautiful? Are you implying that all poor people are ugly, that they looked different from other people, that they had to conform to a certain type? Don't you have relatives who are working poor, down on their luck, or perhaps even on drugs? Weren't some of them pretty? What makes you think this woman has to look a certain way?"
Did she really say all that? If so, then she sounds dumb as a fucking rock. "Why can't she be beautiful?" Oh yes Halle, there are SO many model-thin, drop-dead gorgeous poor, destitute women out there with perfect skin and perfect teeth and great perky tits and bodacious asses. And so many of them have had great health care and eat lots of fruits and vegetables and don't smoke and no problems at all with alcohol or drugs or mental illness. There are so many movie-star beautiful women out there who have led wretched, miserable, poverty-stricken lives that have not affected their gorgeousness one smidgen!
If any women like that DO exist I'd say they're the rare exception, not the rule. Good God, Halle Berry is an idiot!
- Easy. Viola can act, Halle can't. Case closed.
- Halle has the Oscar, Viola is a 2-time Oscar loser. Case closed.
- [quote]In what world does the Oscar winner get offered roles first? What is that rule? Because Mira Sorvino is asking for enforcement. Seriously, it's about who is best for a role.
No, it's about who is best for a role among the actors with the most connected agents.
- Now that Halle has proven herself to be the undisputed Oscar champ, watch for those scripts that used to go to Viola, detour towards her door.
- Halle is insane. Her win was a fluke. No one wants to work with her mess.
Don't believe me, look at her post-Oscar career. And God forbid her personal life. She's seriously nuts.
Viola deserved the win and she's a pro. She was robbed my Meryl's lifetime achievement award.
- Halle's undeserved win cost Nicole Kidman a much deserved Oscar for "Moulin Rouge" and the Academy knew it, which is why they gave Nic the win a year later for her less deserved turn in "The Hours."
- bump
- It looks as if Halle had a nose job since R10's pic
- [/quote]Nobody would believe Halle as the maid in "The Help", even in 1960 a woman with her looks would have had better options.
And, sans higher education, what would those better options have been? (Sorry I didn't note your response number.) Concubine? Prostitute? Hollywood wasn't beating the bushes looking for Black actresses back in those days.
With luck, a Jim Crow era Black woman would have married a man capable of being the sole support of his family who insisted his wife be a housewife and not work for "Miss Anne" and her lecherous husband.
Millions of beautiful Black women, many of whom were far better looking than Halle, worked as servants...it was all that was available to them.
- Alas, will I never learn how to quote? Sorry.
R84
- Viola Davis could do Sophocles Medea on stage and kick ass doing it. Halle Berry hasn't that sort of gravitas at all.
- R86. And that would be quite a feat as there is no extant Medea by Sophocles. Euripedes,yes.
- I love Viola, Meryl and Gwen, etc. but the more traditionally pretty girls are never going to be considered as talented as them, even if they can act. Look what it took for Charlize Theron to get out of the "girlfriend" roles. It's amazing how respected (young) Jessica Lange was considering how drop-dead gorgeous she was as well.
I don't think Halle is a great actress, although she's done well for herself. That first (black) Best Actress award should have gone to Angela Bassett, who is also a gorgeous woman.
-
Viola is a hard working actress who had to wait a long time to be recognized by the mainstream.
Berry tasted fame early, but she really doesn't have much to offer as an actress, so any early interested in her slowly went away.
Viola never participated in a hit and run.
- "Millions of beautiful Black women, many of whom were far better looking than Halle, worked as servants...it was all that was available to them."
Where do you get your statistics from? Out of your ass, I presume.
There were no "millions of beautiful black women, many of whom were far better looking than Halle" employed as maids. There were by and large AVERAGE looking black women employed as maids. To hear you talk, all black maids were goddesses of loveliness.
And there were other options for black women besides being a maid. There were black nurses, secretarys, teachers. And there were opportunities for black women of exceptional good looks in the entertainment industies: model, dancer, actress (there WERE black actresses in 1960).
I guess in your mind every single black woman in America, even if she was drop-dead gorgeous, had no choice but to be a maid. And that is just plain bullshit.
- come on folks, this must be a trick question, Viola is getting roles because she of her less sexualized exposure. they probably take her more serious. halle is great, but
anonymous-e
- Halle has alot of white in her
- [quote]There were no "millions of beautiful black women, many of whom were far better looking than Halle" employed as maids. There were by and large AVERAGE looking black women employed as maids. To hear you talk, all black maids were goddesses of loveliness.
Your stupidity is astounding, did you even read what you wrote? Your uninformed, bigoted assumptions are sickening. At what age is a woman at her most beautiful? The teen years/early 20s, the time when most so-fated Black women of that era began working as domestics. To hear *you* talk, all Black women were/are unfortunate in attractiveness. Beulah was an aberration.
Note, too, the limitations of your reading comprehension beyond even your own drivel: I did make note of the benefits of higher education, citing those women who lacked same.
Get a grip and you might just learn something along the way; your standard of beauty isn't necessarily the default.
a brown-skinned, full-hipped, nappy-haired beauty
- Halle Berry is not a bad actress, but Viola is definitely in a class by herself. Very few actresses have her screen presence. It may sound strange but I thought it was good she didn't get the Oscar for her performance in The Help. The movie was disgustingly cliché and racist and Viola getting an Oscar for playing a maid makes my stomach turn over.
anonymous
- "Your stupidity is astounding, did you even read what you wrote? Your uninformed, bigoted assumptions are sickening. At what age is a woman at her most beautiful? The teen years/early 20s, the time when most so-fated Black women of that era began working as domestics. To hear *you* talk, all Black women were/are unfortunate in attractiveness"
That's not what was said at all, you nutcase. You seem to think that "millions" of drop-dead gorgeous black women in the 60s had no other choice in life but to be a maid, and that's pure idiocy. Women with that kind of beauty are the exception, not the norm. And no where was it said that "all Black women were/are unfortunate in attractiveness?" You're jumping to conclusions, hon. You seem kind of paranoid. You should get some help with that.
- [quote]That's not what was said at all, you nutcase. You seem to think that "millions" of drop-dead gorgeous black women in the 60s had no other choice in life but to be a maid, and that's pure idiocy. Women with that kind of beauty are the exception, not the norm. And no where was it said that "all Black women were/are unfortunate in attractiveness?" You're jumping to conclusions, hon. You seem kind of paranoid. You should get some help with that.
I thought we were discussing "beautiful" women, and here you go flipping mid-conversation to "drop-dead-gorgeous" ones. You're so confused, dear, I'm borrowing VP Biden's incredulous laugh here; go sit in the corner with Wee Paulie Ryan and have a glass or 20 of water.
R93
- Wow, I I would have thought Viola Davis was abou 10 years older. Must be the parts she gets to play: not glamourous. Does Halle Berry ever play "the maid"?
- omg r97 I was just going to post that!!! good for you!! I gave you a W & W
M
- R96 = cuckoo cunt
- The main problem is that Halle can't act and is not appealing to audiences.
She got her one shot at true stardom with Catwoman. When that flopped she had to go back to playing second female lead to the actress who plays Jean Grey in X-men. When your most notable roles in 10 yrs involve playing second fiddle to another former Bond girl, you know you're in trouble!
- not a fan BUT she was an Oscar winning star long before Catwoman
- Why do you have so little respect for maids, R94? They are people too, you know.
%22...turns%20my%20stomach%3F%22%20%20MARY%21%21
- With all of Halle's problems now, look for more scripts sent Viola's way.
- R101 she was only an Oscar winning star for a couple yrs before Catwoman. And she wasn't even the first choice for Catwoman: she was 3rd or 4th.
The reason Catwoman is significant in her career is that it was the first and last time she headlined a big budget film on her own. She's actually been firmly on the B-list for many, many years. Her last 6 films have been flops or disappointments - and her next (Movie 43) will make it 7 (a sketch movie dumped in Jan - ouch).
- Honey, Viola Davis and Halle Berry have very little in common as actresses other than that are both black and around the same age.
You might as well as ask why Annette Bening and Frances McDormand aren't usually offered the same scripts.
Moreover, there is no reason for Berry to be offered a script before Davis for something they might both be right for.
- The more interesting question, to me, is what kind of total fucking asshole would deliberately pit one Black actress against another just to sit back and watch the fight about it?
OP, you're a racist douchebag.
Two actresses. Some roles are right for one, some for the other, some would be suitable for both. An Oscar in no way guarantees the right of first refusal on any script. Some people in Hollywood don't want to work with Berry because of her diva drama, life is too short.
