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By
Veronica Mixon
On March 24, 2002, Halle Berry was the first
African American actress to win the Academy Award
for Best Actress in a motion picture for her performance
in Monster's Ball. Here is
her interview from last spring as she talked about
Swordfirsh.
May 12, 2001
Beautiful, sensuous Halle Berry is riding high
these days and you can hear the pleasure in her
voice as she talks about her new film, Swordfish.
After a string of disastrous movies like the forgettable
B*A*P*S and A Rich Man's Wife, and
a bad marriage to baseball player, David Justice
that became tabloid fodder, the 33-year-old actress
has put the bad karma behind her. Gone are the
days when doing an interview with the lovely actress
meant tiptoeing around her personal life. First,
late last year, word leaked out about her engagement
to musician Eric Benet. Then, weeks ago, Berry
announced that they had eloped.
Meanwhile, her acting career has also taken an
upward swing. Last year, Berry produced and starred
in HBO's acclaimed film, Introducing Dorothy
Dandridge and received an Emmy, the Golden
Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award and
three NAACP Image Awards, including Entertainer
of the Year.
"If I sat around and waited for really good meaty
parts for black women, I could miss my whole career,"
explains Berry. "I'm mindful of that and I will
continue to [develop projects] do that."
Then, Berry, who first appeared in Spike Lee's
Jungle Fever, portrayed the super heroine,
Storm in the box office hit, X-Men. She
also made a splash in the Frankie Lymon biopic
Why Do Fools Fall in Love and Warren Beatty's
controversial political comedy, Bulworth.
In her latest role, Berry is John Travolta's
devious partner in a high-action, sexy thriller
that reunites her X-Men co-star, Australian
hunk, Hugh Jackman. "We felt like this was our
first time working together. We really got to
play off each other and we got to play with our
chemistry as people and found out that we had
a little bit of chemistry which we didn't know
we had on X-Men. So, it was great."
Berry's new found confidence might explain why
she surprises the audience with a bold topless
scene while she flirting with Jackman. "I did
it because I could. So much of my life I was afraid,"
she says. "I finally feel very adult now with
the success of my Dorothy Dandridge project and
the critical acclaim that it brought me. I finally
felt like I didn't have to prove myself anymore."
Clearly, her marriage to Eric Benet has also
contributed to her general well being and happiness.
Berry freely admits that the hard lessons she's
learned during the last couple of years made her
realize that life wasn't a dress rehearsal.
"I'm only going around once and [I had] to get
over all those fears that I thought were limiting
me and holding me down. It stifled me from doing
so many wonderful projects because if it had nudity,
I wouldn't even read it. I'm finally feeling very
comfortable with my own sexuality and I think
that will show in the kinds of roles that I'll
choose from now on."
These days the scariest thing Berry has to worry
about is the physical demands of her roles which
include gun toting, being strung up and dashing
along as bombs explode. By year's end, she'll
start shooting the sequel to X-Men and
later this month, she's off to New Orleans to
star opposite Billy bob Thornton in Monster's
Ball. Nevertheless, the Dorothy Dandridge
project still holds a special place in her heart.
"She was my role model, you know. A sincere love
for her [still] exists."
This article also appears
on The Black World Today website at: www.tbwt.com
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