By SEAN DALY Special to the Daily Press
BEVERLY HILLS — When the weight of the world becomes a bit overwhelming, Halle Berry likes to reach for a Payday candy bar and her favorite paintbrush. “I paint all kinds of things: people, scenery, still life,” she reveals, flashing a movie star smile from ear to ear. “It’s a great form of self expression... and a fantastic stress reliever.” Not that Berry, 36, has much to be worked up about these days. After collecting a Best Actress Oscar for “Monster’s Ball” in March, the former high school cheerleader and runner-up to the Miss USA crown takes on her biggest role to date — as “Bond Girl” Jinx, a highly trained NSA assassin — in the new 007 adventure “Die Another Day,” opening this weekend.
It’s a role she almost died for — literally. As Berry tells it, she began to choke on a piece of freshly cut fig while rehearsing a steamy love scene with co-star Pierce Brosnan. “I guess I was being a little too sexy for my own good,” the actress giggles during her first interview of the morning at The Four Seasons Hotel. “I pulled out this knife and was trying to give the air of ‘Danger, Danger,’so I started cutting this fig and it got caught in my throat.” That’s when Brosnan, wearing only his briefs, came to the rescue. “I gave her a whack on the back,” he explains.
Such are the days when Berry most looks forward to relaxing at the Los Angeles estate she shares with R&B singer Eric Benet, her husband of nearly two years, and 10-year-old India (Benet’s daughter with Tami Stauff, who died at age 25 in 1993). “When you are with a kid or with a child, you get to just play and have fun,” she beams. “I get a good dose of love every day when I go home. It’s better than any drug.”
It’s also a nice antidote to Berry’s frenetic work schedule. Since completing production on “Die Another Day,” the 5’7” Cleveland native has lined up six new projects, including a modern day remake of the Pam Grier classic, “Foxy Brown.” “I am usually scrimping and scraping and trying to figure out what I am going do next,” she admits. “Now I have some choices and people are going take me more seriously when I say I want to produce.”
“I am usually scrimping and scraping and trying to figure out what I am going do next. Now I have some choices and people are going take me more seriously when I say I want to produce.” — — HALLE BERRY Actor/model
The younger of two daughters born to Jerome, an African American hospital attendant, and Judith, a Caucasian psychiatric nurse, Berry has always been a classic Type- Aoverachiever. As a senior at Bedford High School in 1984, she was a member of the National Honor Society, class president, and, yes, even prom queen. “They accused me of stuffing the ballot box because this school has never had black image of beauty before,” Berry remembers. “I didn’t want to be the only black kid. I wanted to be like everybody else.”
Berry, a graduate of Cuyahoga Community College, talks candidly about the need to fit in and the role it has played in shaping who she is today. As a teen, she remembers: “I became whatever (other kids) wanted me to become, so that they would like me. If it’s being the clown, then I’m the class clown. If it was getting straight A’s so I could fit in with the smart kids, that’s what I would do. I was like a chameleon.”
It’s only in the last few years that Berry — a diabetic, who was insulin-dependent for more than six years before turning to holistic medicine — has truly grown comfortable in her own skin. She has done so partly with the help of psychotherapy. “My mom had me in therapy when I was 10,” she shares, candidly. “She was a psychiatric nurse in a hospital, so I have always used therapy as an outlet to create an objective opinion.”
Another big part of Berry’s confidence comes from a guy named Oscar. She was nominated for the industry’s most prestigious award just weeks after beginning work on “Die Another Day,” but Berry insists she would have signed on for the role even after taking home the gold statue. “I saw Jinx as empowering,” she explains. “I got to be sexy and strong at the same time.”
The film includes a sequence showing a bikini-clad Berry wading ashore in a silent homage to Ursula Andress’ “Bond Girl” Honey Rider, from the 1962 classic, “Dr. No.” That scene, shot in Spain during unseasonably cold weather, left a firm impression on her co-stars. Asked for his fondest memory during filming, Brosnan jokes: “Halle coming out of the surf is way up there!”
For the most part, Berry remains covered up in the rest of the film. Not that the
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 18, 2002. Read the original PDF.