What I understood was that when I won that Oscar, things would change in all the ways you're saying: It should come with more respect, more choices and more money. It should, and it normally does. Hattie said, "After I won that award, it was as if I had done something wrong." It was the same with me. I thought, once you won the award, that's the top prize — and so you're supposed to be treated as if you got the top prize.

I got a phone call from Lee Daniels maybe six or seven months ago. And he said to me, "Mo'Nique, you've been blackballed." And I said, "I've been blackballed? Why have I been blackballed?" And he said, "Because you didn't play the game." And I said, "Well, what game is that?" And he gave me no response. The next thing he said to me was, "Your husband is outbidding you." But he never asked me what [salary] we were asking for. You know, my husband [actor and producer Sidney Hicks] and I had to change things so we wouldn't have to depend on [others]. So we do it independently. We're very proud of taking the independent route, and we have a movie coming out on April 24 called Blackbird.