There’s no denying that veteran actress Angela Bassett is a generational talent. But even her impressive acting chops couldn’t keep her from hitting an unfortunate career stall that Black actors seem to experience after receiving an Oscar nomination or win. And now, she’s opening up about it.
Sitting down for a new interview with ABC’s Linsey Davis, Bassett shared that opportunities were few and far between even after she was nominated for her role as Tina Turner in “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” in 1993.
“It was about 18 months after that, after the role came out. Remember, it was during a period of time where, I guess, roles were few and far between for a woman of color…you know, of a certain hue,” she explained.
Related: Angela Bassett’s 15 Best Roles, Ranked
She went on to say that while there were a few available roles that claimed to be “open to anyone,” the powers that be were looking to cast white actors who were in their 30s. This, in turn, made her question what her career path would look like going forward.
“It was a leading role, a showy role,” Basset said, referencing Tina Turner. “So, are you gonna make a lateral move? Are you gonna go upward? What’s the trajectory after something like—after you reach the ceiling?”
Although the actress admitted that Hollywood has improved somewhat for Black actors and actresses, her reveal only speaks to a larger pattern that we’ve noticed. While many white stars seem to experience a career catapult after receiving coveted Oscar nominations, Black stars seem to experience a lull.
Just ask Lupita Nyong’o, who explained in November 2025 that her career didn’t benefit from her 2014 Oscar win. At the time, she told CNN’s “Inside Africa” that while she did receive some phone calls after her major win—they were predominantly for roles that were more of the same as what she’d already done and not lead roles.
“After I won that Academy Award, you’d think, ‘Oh, I’m gonna get lead roles here and there.’ [Instead, it was], ‘Oh, Lupita, we’d like you to play another movie where you’re a slave, but this time you’re on a slave ship. Those are the kind of offers I was getting in the months after winning my Academy Award,” she said at the time.
She continued in part: “There were think-pieces about: ‘Is this the beginning and end of this dark-skinned Black African woman’s career?’ I had to deafen myself to all those pontificators because, at the end of the day, I’m not a theory; I’m an actual person.”
Mahershala Ali, who has not one, but two Oscars, told GQ Magazine in September 2026 that he had to ask for a lead role on the hit 2014 show “True Detective,” despite his earned prestige.
“I thought especially after winning two… I was like, It’s going to break now,’ you know? But I’m asking to be the lead on ‘True Detective.’ I’m asking. It wasn’t, ‘Oh, here you go,’” Ali explained.
And who could forget Halle Berry’s interview with Entertainment Weekly in 2021, where she said that she thought people would be knocking down her door with opportunities–but like Nyong’o, she soon found out that wasn’t the case.
“When you have a historic win like that, you think, ‘Oh, this is going to fundamentally change,’” Berry said at the time. “It did fundamentally change me, but it didn’t change my place in the business overnight. I still had to go back to work. I still had to try to fight to make a way out of no way.”
Forget the Kardashian Curse; it looks like Hollywood may have an Oscars curse that unintentionally targets Black actors and limits their trajectories instead of helping them. How can someone like Leonardo DiCaprio win an Oscar in 2016 and then go on to star in not one, not two, but four movies that all received Best Picture nominations at the Oscars, while actors like Nyong’o or even Ali don’t receive the same luxury?
To be clear, we’re not saying that Black actors aren’t working on good projects after their huge Oscar moments. What we are saying is that the kinds of opportunities that follow don’t always match the career momentum we see afforded to their white counterparts. And when an Oscar is supposed to be the ultimate industry co-sign, it’s fair to ask why that co-sign seems to open some doors wider than for some than others.
