INTERVIEW
the
BERRY life
HALLE BERRY MAY BE ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST INSPIRATIONAL ACTRESSES, BUT THIS COMES A DISTANT SECOND TO WHAT SHE DEEMS HER MOST PIVOTAL ROLE IN LIFE, AS A MOTHER, KAREN OVERTON DISCOVERS
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s parenting types go, Halle Berry takes a strong, dominant, independent approach, certainly if her film roles are any sort of reference. Only very rarely will you see the 53 year old cowering away in a romcom or emotive thriller – instead, her movie modus operandi is rather more centred towards high-octane action in the form of X-Men, Bond, Catwoman and Kingsman. Yet, to assume the three-times married Ohio-born actress, philanthropist and campaigner doesn’t possess a calm, affective side is to do her a disservice. Sure, the tempestuous, feisty personality is always there, bubbling under the surface, but no sooner does she begin to speak of the love, commitment and total absorption she has in the lives of her children – Nahla, 11, and Maceo, six – that you gain the truest, lightest, gentlest reflection of this big-screen heavyweight. “I think you can be many things as an actress, or in fact in any other job, no matter what it is – you can bluff you way through that and no one need ever know,” she begins. “But when it comes to parenthood, to being a mother… there is only one person you can ever be, and that’s yourself.” In fact, maybe the truest side of Halle Berry was the one we witnessed with tears rolling down her cheeks as she accepted the 2002 Academy Award for Monster’s Ball for Best Actress – ironically, one of the few movies that saw her embrace emotional twists and turns, playing a struggling widow and single mother with heart-breaking candour. It’s notable that after a real surge of mainstream success leading up to X-Men: The Last Stand in 2006, she began to slow down her work. “I chose to reassess my life,” she says. “I had done so much in such a short space of time, and soon enough there was this beautiful girl, Nahla, in front of me, and the realisation was that I needed to stop.” Her daughter, from her relationship with French Canadian 48
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