Feature for Gothika

She's had her share of turmoil, heartbreak, and self-doubt, but one thing Halle Berry has learned about life is to fight back. First she had to overcome the curious tension that comes from growing up in America as a woman of mixed racial parentage. Then came the doubts that plagued her as a beautiful woman trying to gain acceptance as a serious actress. And now she's had to face up to the public breakdown of her marriage to Eric Benet. But then again, when you've won an Oscar, you've set a new standard as a Bond girl, and you're on the verge of creating your own film franchise as Catwoman, life is not about complaining, it's about moving forward.

"Life is a series of learning experiences, just as it is a series of ups and downs. I've certainly had my share of both and I'm happy to say I'm doing well. My mother raised me and my sister to be as strong as nails. So I've got a survivor's instincts which come in handy when you feel your world is falling apart."

"Eric (Benet) and I had been having marital problems for some time. We tried to work things out, but in the end it just wasn't going to happen and there was no point in going on." says Berry, whose first marriage to star American baseball player David Justice ended in divorce in 1996. "But even those I've had these difficult relationships, I still believe in love, romance and marriage. I always have and still do. You can't look back at what went wrong. It's over. I'm looking upon this as an important learning experience and moving on with my life."

GOTHIKA, co-starring Penelope Cruz and Robert Downey Jr., is Berry's big new gothic head horror film. Berry plays Miranda Grey, a brilliant criminal psychologist who treats dangerously disturbed patients at a woman's penitentiary in Connecticut. Her life lurches out of control when she's driving home during a storm one night and has a nightmare encounter with a mysterious young woman. She blacks out during the incident and upon regaining consciousness discovers that her husband has been brutally murdered, and that she is the prime suspect. Miranda appears to going mad and is then institutionalised along with the very patients she used to treat and as she struggles to retain her sanity and discover the truth about what happened. Lurking in the background is her growing suspicion that she's possessed by a supernatural force - or is she merely out of her mind?

Adding another strange twist to the making of that film in Montreal earlier this summer, Berry broke her arm while shooting a scene in which she struggles with Robert Downey Jr., who plays a fellow psychiatrist, and production was delayed several weeks. When filming resumed with Berry, the cinematographer needed to avoid showing the actress' cast.

I spoke to Halle Berry in Los Angeles recently where she looked better than ever - if that's possible for one of the world's most beautiful and shapely women.

She's just finished shooting Catwoman in Vancouver, Canada, a film which promises to be as big or bigger than even her turn as a Bond girl.

THE INTERVIEW

Q: Halle, you're a pretty tough girl by the looks of it. Can you tell us how you broke your arm while shooting Gothika?
BERRY: Well, first of all, I discovered that breaking your arm is very painful. I was doing this scene where Robert (Downey Jr.) is trying to restrain me while my character is supposed to be sedated and somehow my arm got twisted the wrong way. I was screaming and yelling for the scene when I heard the snap and felt the pain. Then I was screaming and yelling for real! (Laughs) Robert felt terrible. We were struggling with each other and it was just one wrong turn on both our parts. He wasn't trying to hurt me or anything, it was just one of those unfortunate accidents.

Q: Did that make you any more cautious while shooting Catwoman?
BERRY: Oh, no! I didn't hold back at all. I'm going all out for the stunts. People kept reminding me that I broke my arm earlier in the year and I answered 'So what?' I love action stuff. It's great fun. It's really exhilarating. What happened to me on the Gothika set was a freak accident.

Q: How tough are you in Catwoman?
BERRY: Oh, she kicks ass. You wouldn't want to get in her face. I even get to look really sexy in my leather outfit - pants which have slits in them and an unbelievably sexy top. Catwoman is hot!

Q: Was it difficult working while your marriage was in freefall?
BERRY: My mother was very supportive of me and she wouldn't let me start feeling sorry for myself. I've inherited some of that toughness even though sometimes feel very vulnerable and shaky. My attitude is that unless you are starving and cannot get food, or have medical problems for which there is no help, you don't really have a serious problem. You have a life lesson and I'm going through an important life lesson at the moment.

Q: Are you still close to Benet's daughter, India?
BERRY: Yes. More than ever. I officially adopted her so right now I'm very much about being a mom. She's a wonderful girl, who needs me right now. She's also at that age where she has a hundred questions only a mother can answer. She's noticing boys. Boys are noticing her. Men are noticing her. That's very scary to me, so she has become the most important relationship in my life right now.

Q: Do you worry about falling in love again?
BERRY: Love is always a difficult thing because you never know where it takes you. It can be so wonderful or it can be very crushing...I know romance will come back into my life in the future. I'm in no hurry now to find a man. I have my career. I have my daughter. I have a very active life.

Q: In Gothika, your character is a psychiatrist who meets up with a ghost who may not be that friendly. You've spoken in the past about an incident on the set of your Dorothy Dandridge biopic for HBO where you feel you had a similar kind of experience...
BERRY: Yes. When I was preparing for the film, I borrowed a dress that belonged to Dorothy for inspiration. I didn't wear it or anything. It was in a protective plastic bag in my den. Then one night, I was having tea with one of my best girlfriends in my living room when they heard rustling noises coming from the den. We went to the room to check out the noises. The plastic on the dress was rattling. No kidding. It was actually rattling. (My friend) and I both hauled our butts out of there and fast.

Q: Do you think her spirit was somehow present with you?
BERRY: I'm sure it Dorothy trying to let me know that she was there with me in some way. Because that was just the first of several incidents that happened while I had the dress. My housekeeper and I would hear noises in my bedroom and find that my vanity chair had moved and the refrigerator door would fling open by itself. It was really weird and scary.

Q: Do you still have the dress?
BERRY: No thank you. As much as I loved the dress, and as much as I love who Dorothy Dandridge was and what she accomplished for black people in this business, I just couldn't put up with the haunting, so I returned it and everything stopped as soon as it was out of the house.

Q: What made you want to do Gothika? It must have been fairly stressful to go down some of those psychological roads?
BERRY: It was. When I first read the script I knew it was a great part for a woman but I really had no idea how hard it would be to play that kind of emotion for three months. That was a real challenge. Forget about the broken arm. That may have hurt physically, but the real pain was getting into the head of a woman who is experiencing incredible fear and anxiety about what is happening to her mind. Doing this film certainly wasn't like a walk in the park. I certainly didn't want to just phone it in. I took it really seriously and I think because I took it so seriously and because our director (Matthieu Kassowitz) took it so seriously that it started to elevate the whole material and it became something more.

Q: Your mother worked 35 years in a hospital psychiatrict ward. Did she give you some coaching?
BERRY: Oh, yeah. She was really my primary resource in coming to terms with the material. I grew up in that world. That was her life. She brought it home every night and as a kid she was always having me visit psychologists because I had to deal with being half-black and half-white.

Q: Was that always a difficult issue for you growing up?
BERRY: Yes. The worst thing I face as a little kid was having a white mother. She was always helping me deal with my emotions and helping me make sure I was solid and sound. So it's a world I understand very well.

Q: So your mother never tried to run away from the mixed racial issue?
BERRY: No. My mother encouraged me to confront my anxieties about that. She understood the pressures I felt (over Berry's mixed racial origins) and wanted me to be very open with my emotions about that. I think I've always been the type of person who questioned who I was and I was always able to express those feelings freely. She taught me that you're not just here for no reason. And I think all of this psychological and identity questioning has helped free me up to become a better actress. I mean, that's part of the gig - it's all about being able to express your emotions pretty freely.

Q: Are you a fan of psychologically tense or horror films in general?
BERRY: The Shining was my all time favourite and I've always been fascinated by the very good films in that genre. But the truth is that no one offered me a real good one until now.

Q: What are your ambitions now. Are you trying to balance the more commercial films like Catwoman with more artistic projects like Monster's Ball?
BERRY: I would like to be able to do that. I think I have always tried to do things which I see as art and which I just love and things that hopefully will be commercially successful. I think that's the kind of balance I need. So much of this business is about dollars and cents but if you ignore that aspect and just try to say, "I am an artist and I'm just going to do the art," you could work your way right out of the industry so you also have to be realistic and sensible.

Q: Gothika is a film where you're definitely playing against the kind of glamorous image you've had ever since we saw you in the Bond film. Was that an interesting aspect of doing this kind of movie?
BERRY: It's important not to get stuck in any one space when it comes to your work. When you live in America, everybody focuses on the physical. Sometimes it's hard to get around it, so it's cathartic to do something like this, to sometimes take attention off the glamour aspect. Not that I don't love that part of this business, but there's another side to it and this film gives me the chance to showcase that other side of myself that's really not just about the glamour of Hollywood.

Q: You've recently appeared on the cover of the U.S. edition of FHM, where you were voted by its readers as the sexiest woman in the world. How do you feel about that kind of image?
BERRY: I'm not just comfortable with it, I like it. After a period in my life where I had kind of an ambiguous feeling about beauty and all that comes with it, I'm finally OK with my body and my sexuality. There was a time when I felt that in order to be taken seriously as an actress I couldn't really express that part of my personality. But that is an important part of who I am.

Q: Was your decision to bare your breasts for that very memorable scene in Swordfish something like a statement you were making about being comfortable with your body?
BERRY: That's exactly what it was. It was a very difficult decision, but ever since I did that scene in Swordfish, I have been a lot more comfortable with my sexuality. I could never have done those (nude sex) scenes in Monster's Ball, for example, if I hadn't done Swordfish and accepted the fact that I have this body and that nudity is completely natural and normal and OK. That film in some way and because of all the publicity about it made me very comfortable with my sexuality. This way I can still do sexy photo shoots, be sexual on screen and have an Oscar at home. That makes mefeel really good about myself. I'm completely OK with my body and my sensuality. It's another facet of my personality! (Laughs)

Q: You've said in the past that you placed a lot of pressure on yourself in general - about relationship, about your work - are you still as intense?
BERRY: I've changed a lot, I think. There's still a big part of me that puts a lot of stress on myself to excel. That can be a good thing but it can also strangle you inside if you allow that pressure to take over your being. Now I'm much freer in general about my outlook on the world. I've achieved enough success that I can tell myself, "Hey, girl, you're doing OK." So why should I ruin that feeling.

Q: And when it comes to love and relationships?
BERRY: That's always more complicated. Relationships are always messy, at least they have been for me. When I find the right man, I'll let you know. (Laughs)