Halle Berry: Halle Terror

Yeah Halle, sure, but now that the shooting's over would she ring up her co-star to chat? "Would we be friendly and cordial if we ran into each other? Yes. Would we hang out or go out for lunch? No," Yet does Berry feel any kinship with Lange, in terms of how Hollywood treats women as they age? "I'm aware of a real double standard about how attractive women and men actors are seen to be as they age," Berry says, "When I'm in my 40s and 50s, I really see myself in a different lifestyle than making movies. I want to have a family. I'm hoping to get out of the movie business before gravity takes a hold of my face. Plastic surgery wouldn't be right for me. If I look good at 30 or 50 because of the way I take care of myself and exercise and eat, God bless me. But if I look that way because I've been under the knife four or five times, I won't feel as good inside knowing that I went out and bought it. Gravity's already taking hold and believe me. the subject has come up with people where I later go, 'Should I get a boob job?' And then I say, 'No, my boobs are real and if they're gonna fall and hit my knees, they can just hit 'em, I'm not gonna have fake boobs."

So, for all the Sturm und Drang involved, how does Berry think the movie will turn out? "Losing Isaiah may seem like a TV movie for some people," she observes. "When I read it, it seemed like a TV movie 10 me. I haven't actually seen it edited yet, but the trailer's great. Hey, at least it's a 100 percent positive movie with no guns, no violence. Because we wanted a PG rating, we could only say two 'fucks' in the whole movie. We split 'em up. I got to say one and Jessica got to say the other."

Although making Isaiah was clearly no picnic for Berry, the stories she's told me--and the no-nonsense, tensile air about her as she's told them--make it clear no one could now mistake her for the baby doll cutie she once appeared to be. When I run this opinion by her, she agrees, comment-ing dryly. "I don't want to be a baby doll. How can you be in this business and go through the ups and downs and see it for what it is and not change? You'd be an idiot. You're going to get eaten alive if you don't stand up for yourself. Years ago, I never would have been able to express myself like I did on Losing Isaiah, because I would have been worrying about what people were thinking of me, and wanting to keep everything 'just so,' I'm finding out about myself that I can't keep up that act. I have to let the real me out. Now, I'm like, 'Because I'm not say-ing and doing everything you want to hear and see me do, because I have a brain of my own and I'm being assertive, I'm a bitch now?' People want you to be the same little puppet that you were. Be nice. Don't say how you feel, don't do what you want to do. Be a doll? That's boring."

Speaking of dolls, what sparked that big fracas over the merchandising of The Flintstones, when Berry complained that there was no doll to commemorate her role of sexpot Rosetta Stone? "Believe me, it wasn't that I wanted them to make a 'Halle Berry' doll," she says, letting out a snort. "I've gotten amazing offers to market a Halle Berry doll of its own. you know. It just struck me when The Flintstones toys came out. is it or is it not racism that they didn't make a black doll not of me but of my character in the movie? Black kids went to see The Flintstones, too, and why shouldn't black kids, white kids or any other color kids be able to buy a doll of my character in that movie? But again. I expressed myself, and it's so freeing when you can let that out rather than carry it around and become bitter, jaded and miserable. It's really important to say what is the unsaid, to do the unthinkable, just because you need to do it to feel good."

We kick around some of the other things she has done recently to feel good. She mentions how she's bought a house in Hollywood and joyfully describes amassing an eclectic collection of paintings and sculptures. Perhaps noticing my arched brow, she explains that her career now demands she spend less time in Atlanta, which was, the last time we met. home base for her and her husband. I say, "But Halle, you've only made one movie since we last talked about a year ago, so it's not as if you've had to be here every second. You do know what people are saying, right--that this L.A. house suggests problems between you and your husband?"

"As much as I love Atlanta, I was just out of my element," she asserts. "There I was planting an herb garden and flowers but, after about a year, I looked around and thought, 'I love it here, but my life and the career I worked so hard for is in Los Angeles." If you're not here for those moments when things happen, you get passed by. I missed out on a movie role that was so me: real sexy, really sharp, very strong, in control of everything, sort of like The Last Seduction. David said, 'I agree. You have to go back there.' David is here right now, too, and I'm surprised, but he's lovin' it. With the baseball strike and all, I have to say, he loves the Braves, but, if he got traded to the Dodgers, we wouldn't care too much."

I repeat: Has she heard the rumors about the state of their marriage? "Yes--and sometimes from my friends, too," she says acidly. "If I told you all the rumors I've heard, it would blow your mind. I hear things like how they saw David here or there when they know that I'm away. Let me tell you one rumor, specifically." Fine by me. "I had an accident at our house and ended up falling and making a big, deep gash down my back. David thought I needed to be stitched: the bleeding wouldn't stop. It was about 3 a.m. and I didn't want to go to the hospital, but David took me and the X-ray people looked at my back and also at my elbow, which was really hurting. They patched me up without any stitches and sent me home. Two weeks later, David's cousin, who lives in Atlanta, got into a car accident and they rushed him to the hospital X-ray room. He was wearing a David Justice T-shirt and the technician said, 'You like David Justice?' and he said, 'Uh-huh,' and the lady says, 'Well, let me tell you, he was in here with his little wife and she was beaten up. Her arm was practically broken. He beats her.' She didn't know who she was talking to. That's how a rumor gets started.

"As soon as they sent David's cousin home, he called us and we had our attorney make a phone call and the woman got fired from her job," she adds, but she knows that is not how a rumor--especially a juicy rumor about not one but two celebrities--gets stopped. After all, in the past. Berry has outspokenly discussed a particularly abusive relation-ship, one that left her hearing impaired, and while many applauded her for shedding light on what TV talk shows like to call "one of America's dirtiest secrets," Berry tells me that she believes she is paying a toll for her candor. "Every article I read about myself now, they refer to me as this 'battered woman' or this 'used-to-be-battered' woman. Or they imply that all of the men in my life beat me. That wasn't the case at all. I was open about discussing one [relationship]... but the minute violence happened, I left that situation, I get really angry when I'm now always shown under a headline story about battered women."

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