After Insecure multi-hypenate Issa Rae presented Berry with the award, Berry started off her inspiring speech by thanking Rae, who she says has inspired her “since the moment she showed up.”

She then explained when she first read her latest project, Netflix’s Bruised, she realized that it wasn’t written for someone who looks like her. She said she went to the movie’s producers and asked, “Why can’t it be a Black woman” and they responded, “Why not?” The producers then tasked Berry with finding a director, and the Academy Award-winning actress recounts summoning the courage to say, “Why not me?”

Berry’s anecdote set the tone for her speech, which captured what has inspired her career.

“If it made you uncomfortable watching that story,” Berry said, “imagine being that woman living that story.”

“This is the power of storytelling,” she continued. “It can raise our consciousness and help us think outside of ourselves and our individual circumstance. I realize we truly need to see each other’s realities no matter how uncomfortable it makes us, so that we might stop judging and stop pointing fingers, but rather find compassion and empathy for the others.”

According to PopSugar, Berry went on to discuss her three decades-long career, and how her mentality has shifted since she started out.

“I used to think that if I could play the part of a white man, then I was winning. But you know what, wanna know why that didn’t work? Because, if you didn’t know, I’m not a white man,” Berry said with a chuckle. “So, for those roles to work, they would have to be substantially changed. It would have to be written with the reality of my journey, in all of its beauty and all of its pain.”

“This is why I am so grateful to be standing and living in this moment where women are standing up and we are telling our own stories,” Berry continued.

As the crowd applauded, she added that women can and will do it all.

“We will use our emotional intelligence and we will tell stories that don’t fit preconceived notions,” she said. “Because we are confident and we are scared. We are vulnerable and we are strong. We are everything and all of that and all at the same time.”

Berry concluded her speech with a shoutout to young women everywhere.

“To every little girl who feels unseen and unheard, this is our way of saying to you,” she said. “We love you, and we see you, and you deserve every good thing in this world.”