Halle from the Heart
By Merle Ginsberg

Academy Award-winner Halle Berry takes on another harrowing role in her new movie, Gothika, but it's her journey to motherhood that she considers her most important accomplishment.

Birthday Girl


Just as the November Issue of Ladies' Home Journal (from which this article is featured) was about to hit the newsstands, Halle Berry released a statement saying "Eric and I have had marital problems for some time now and have tried to work things out together. However, at this point, I feel we need time apart to re-evaluate our union. We ask that you respect our privacy as we are going through this emotional time." Our hearts go out to Halle, especially given the devotion she displayed towards her husband and daughter in the interview below, conducted a scant two months ago.

It's the eve of Halle Berry's 37th birthday, and instead of getting all dolled up for a big night in one of the exquisite, figure-flattering designer gowns she's become famous for wearing since winning practically every acting award known to man -- an Emmy, a Golden Globe, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and of course, the Oscar -- she's working. Having just left a photo session to promote her new Halloween thriller, Gothika, she's now in her favorite booth at the Sunset Strip restaurant Mirabelle and is hunkering down for this interview, nary a birthday cupcake in sight.

"I'm kinda tired," she admits, "and so hungry I might eat my sleeve!" She orders broiled fish and a glass of red wine, because after finally weaning herself off daily insulin shots, the actress, whose diabetes was diagnosed early in her career, is committed to a "totally healthy" diet. "But I can hardly complain," Berry says. "It's not like I've been flipping burgers all day!" She's sporting a rarely photographed casual look of jeans, a black blouse and no makeup, with her newly grown-in hair pinned up in back with a butterfly clip. At her side is a Le Sportsac bag designed by her buddy, rocker Gwen Stefani.

Halle Berry is a petite woman with a big life -- and no pretensions; you won't find a trace of the diva attitude she's certainly earned the right to have. That may be because the firmly A-list actress has fought a long battle to get to the top. Growing up in Cleveland, with a white mother who divorced her black father when Berry was just 4, she was ostracized by both black and white kids, and never felt that she quite belonged anywhere. After a stint in modeling, she landed in Hollywood in the late 1980s and soon got good reviews for her roles in movies such as Jungle Fever and Losing Isaiah. But Berry then all but shelved her career to marry Atlanta Braves star David Justice and become what she calls "a baseball wife" in 1993. When the marriage ended in divorce in 1996, she came back to Hollywood and starred in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge for HBO. It was a project that she fought to get made -- and it put her back on the Hollywood map. But it was her powerful performance in Monster's Ball that netted Berry her 2002 Oscar, making her the first black woman to win the Academy Award for best actress.

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Glamour Gal?

Q: You're working the night before your birthday and on the actual day of your 37th birthday on your new movie, Catwoman. I thought you had such a glamorous life!

A: One of the things you learn in Hollywood is that nothing that's supposed to be "glamorous" is all that glamorous! You only learn that when you get there. But if I have had a real moment of glamour in my life, it was literally the moment when I won the Oscar. Not the moment when I was sitting there before, or after I walked off the stage. It was only the moment on stage -- that was the epitome of glamour! Professionally, I don't think it will get any better than that, even if I'm lucky enough to be up there again.

Q: How did marrying Eric, and adopting his daughter, India (11, whose biological mother died when India was not even a year old), change your perspective on the glamorous life?

A: I've learned it's very important in Hollywood to have a life outside of work. A life of all work can be kind of shallow. Until I had India, I didn't realize what it's all about. Every night when I'm with her, and we talk, she brings me right back to what life is really about.

Q: Would you say that having a preteen daughter -- something I'm sure you didn't expect -- was really a surprise gift?

A: Yes, such an adorable, sweet gift. You know, someone else's kid could have been -- anything. I didn't meet India for about nine months when I was first dating Eric. I didn't want to meet her. I thought, I don't want to come into this kid's life and then we'll break up, and I'll be torn. So I met her kicking and screaming, actually saying to Eric, "Oh, no, I'm gonna fall in love with the kid. And then I'm gonna have to keep you whether I want to or not!"

Q: Was it your choice or Eric's to not meet India right away?

A: We talked about it, and we both agreed. I certainly wasn't pressuring him. I felt it was important to establish 'us' and take the rest of our lives to know her. She lived in Milwaukee with her grandmother when Eric was on the road. We decided she wouldn't come to live with us until we got married, because we didn't want to take any chances of disappointing her. So for two years after I met her, we commuted a lot to Wisconsin. And when we were really sure, she moved out here with us. But, believe me, after meeting her the first time -- I knew. I loved her the minute I saw her. At that moment it was like, Okay, buddy, I don't care what you do to me -- cause I'm in love with her. So I'm gonna marry you!

Q: Had you been feeling maternal before that?

A: When I turned 30, I instantly hit maternal -- and I was divorcing. So the timing was bad. My mother always told me I would know when to have kids, but I thought I might never. I wasn't sure I wanted the headaches. Even as a young girl, I was very career-oriented. And then I hit 30 and got the feeling, Oh my God, I need to have a baby! It's a powerful thing. And very full of conflict when you're going through divorce. So when India came along -- and Eric -- it was just what I needed. I was ready. And she needed a mother.

Q: Did India take to you the way you took to her?

A: She barely remembered her mother, Tami, who died in a car accident when India was 10 months old. But then the strangest thing happened. Recently a woman e-mailed me at my Web site and wrote, "I was a friend of India's mom, and I'd like to talk to you sometime." I e-mailed her back to see if she was real, and then I started this relationship with her. A few days ago, we got a videotape of Tami breast-feeding India. At the end of the tape, she says, "In case anybody's gonna be watching this in the future -- isn't she the most beautiful baby in the world?" I felt like she was saying it to me! We were all just bawling, watching it! India was crying. Eric was crying. India turned to me and said, "Mom -- I never heard my mother's voice!" Just because Tami's not here doesn't mean she doesn't live in our minds.

Q: Can you imagine growing up without your mother?

A: No. I am so close to my mother. I can't imagine it. I grew up without my father, and survived it, but it's probably much harder to grow up without a mother.

Family Ties

Q: You've often said that your mother, who was a psychiatric nurse for many years, was someone you could always go to for advice. Not many young girls feel that way.

A: I do have a therapist -- but my mom's always been my therapist, too. What she understood about me is that I had to learn my own lessons by living through them to know what she was talking about.

Q: Did your mother's choice to enroll you in an all-white school make things hard for you?

A: Yeah. Till I was in third grade, I lived in an all-black inner city. My mom realized I would need a good education, and where I was living that probably wouldn't happen. Not because it was a black neighborhood, but because it was the city. So she moved us to the suburbs to go to better schools, and I was suddenly surrounded by all white people. She knew I would survive that, but I wouldn't survive if I didn't get a good education.

Q: Do you think that the success of stars like you and Jennifer Lopez has helped ease racial tensions?

A: Yeah, it's changing. It's great in these times that I can be Catwoman and not "black" Catwoman. I think that's one of the great things about rap and hip-hop -- it's put a wedge in that great racial divide. I drive down the street and see corny lookin' white boys wearin' baggy pants. I don't believe in everything rap stands for, but it's bridging the racial gap with the new generation. When I was a kid, it was black kids aspiring to be white. Now, it's white kids aspiring to be black. India is 11 and goes to a predominantly white school and she's okay with her self-image. I ask her questions all the time like, "Do you feel as good as your friends?" And she says, "Yeah, Mom, I don't even think about it." And that's all I thought about growing up! It was such a struggle for me, but it's much less of an issue for her.

Q: How old were you when you began to have a real sense of yourself?

A: Honestly, I was in my 30s -- after my divorce -- before I finally began to acknowledge that I was attractive, and that I'm smart. I finally felt like I had a lot to offer somebody. Because of the divorce, I had to do some real deep soul-searching. In your 20s, you're just surviving. In your 30s, you start to realize things. You start to figure it out. It's hard to get married before you're 30.

Q: And your career wasn't in such a good place then.

A: No -- and even worse, because when I got married [to David Justice], I gave up everything for it. I moved to Atlanta and was cooking dinners and watching baseball games. My manager was back here in L.A., saying, "What the hell are you doing? Your whole career is gone!" I didn't care -- I was in love! I thought, I'm gonna have the picket fence, the dog, the kid, and this is gonna make me happy. And I realized, after two years, that I was more miserable than I'd ever been in my life. I had no identity. Luckily he left -- or I'd probably still be there, wanting to work it out. I don't know if I'd do that today, but I was like that, then.

Q: How did you cope right after your divorce, which you've said was quite painful?

A: Acting helped me survive. I got offered this movie B*A*P*S -- a mindless comedy. And to this day, people still come up to me and ask, "Why did you do that movie?" And I say, "You know what? I was going through a divorce." It was either do B*A*P*S or hang myself in the shower! Hanging myself in the shower was not an option. I just wanted to work, to feel useful and productive. So acting saved my life. I have no regrets about doing movies and roles I believe in at the moment. Even if the reason is to pay for my kid's education, that's a real reason for me. People think actors can just sit back and wait for that perfect movie, but who pays the bills in the interim? Fairies don't come down and put money under your pillow. The more successful you become, the more financial responsibilities you have. You want to help out family members who are less fortunate than you are. So you can say, "Okay. I'll do that to help out Uncle Johnny." That's what family is. That's what family does.

Q: You used to say you were a "drama magnet!" Are you still?

A: I'm never gonna say that again! Because the fact that I would say it was the exact thing that would draw drama to me! I kept putting out that energy, and then I would think, Why does drama always come to me? But I made that manifest in my life. I used to feel like, God, if there's a loser in any town, I'll find him! Well, by God, if that's not what I did, over and over again. So now I'm learning, like when things are going right in my life, I can't start that old pattern of thinking. When I get breaks these days, I think, Things are great -- and I deserve it!

Q: Do you wish you hadn't had as many downs as ups?

A: I'll take all the lows -- they allow me to enjoy the highs at a whole new level. That mountain feels so good at the top when you've been to the bottom, to the depths of despair. When things happen to me now, I say, "Okay, I've survived worse." When the chips are down, I find myself thinking, Chances are, I'm gonna survive. This person can leave. I can lose this job -- and I'll still be okay. That's really comforting.

Halle's Projects

Q: Did you like working with Robert Downey Jr. on Gothika? He's certainly had a complicated life.

A: He's got lots of material to draw on. I think he's one of the most interesting people I've ever met. He's very complex and smart. I always find that the most interesting people are also complex.

Q: Gothika has been described as a "supernatural horror movie." That's a departure for you. What is it that drew you to this project?

A: I play Miranda Grey, a doctor at a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane, who wakes up one day and is a patient in her own ward. She doesn't know why she's there -- or how to get out -- and the movie is her journey. She's a great woman's character -- she's not a victim. I couldn't put the script down when I first got it. If you want to see a scary movie for Halloween, this is it. It's a story adults can really relate to and will want to talk about afterward.

Q: How do you feel when TV shows like Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight mention your name and talk about your personal life all the time?

A: I try not to think about it! [Laughs] And we try not to invest in all that at home. If it were up to me, my family wouldn't have a television. But having an 11-year-old -- I'm kind of overruled. When Lizzie McGuire comes on, forget it. And The Simpsons. So it's hard. Those shows are sweet -- but TV also lends itself to having to watch other things. Sometimes you don't want to be inundated with all that. Pop culture can be so pervasive in this country. Sometimes you have to say, "Resist! Resist!"

Q: Aren't you about to do another major project for television?

A: Their Eyes Were Watching God, a book by Zora Neale Hurston, is an important piece of black literature and culture that I want to be a part of. It's going to be a 2004 television movie for "Oprah Winfrey Presents," and I love Oprah to pieces! I would do anything she asked me to do. She's a mentor and friend -- the kind of friend who, when my life gets into one of those valleys, she's the first one to call and say, "It's Oprah. Okay. Breathe. Are you breathing?" There's no better person to get a call from -- other than my mother!

Q: Do you and Eric have a plan for how you will share responsibility for India while you're making this movie and Catwoman?

A: Well, for the past couple years, Eric's been pretty low-key with his schedule, so they've both been able to come and be with me. But now he has a new album coming out, and he has to go back on the touring circuit. So we'll be fighting over India. And I say she goes with me! [Laughs] The kid goes with the mom. That's the way it's supposed to be!

Q: [Looking at watch and seeing it's almost midnight]: Hey -- it's almost your birthday!

A: No! I'm gonna be 36 until the last living minute I can stretch it out to! I was born at 11:59 p.m. Anyway, 37 isn't that much of an event. Thirty-five and 40 are events. But then -- every day is an event, isn't it?