Halle Berry: I love being in films... but my greatest role is being a mum

HALLE BERRY’S mantelpiece must be groaning under the weight of all her acting awards – 19 so far, with an Oscar, an Emmy and a Golden Globe all jostling for prime position.

But the Hollywood beauty has no glittering gong to mark the role she is proudest of — being a mother.
Halle, 46, says: “Being a mom puts things into perspective about what we take and share in life.
“It’s a matter of juggling and finding what comes natural.
“Being a mother is probably the most important thing in my life.
“Career is important, but nothing really supersedes my role as a mother. That’s the most important thing I’m going to do in this life at this point.”
The former model and Bond girl came to motherhood relatively late.

Halle Berry with daughter Nahla

Until her daughter Nahla was born four years ago, Halle’s acting career had always come first with notable appearances in the X-Men films, Die Another Day, Swordfish, Catwoman and Monster’s Ball in 2001, for which she won her Best Actress Oscar.
“I was 41 when I had Nahla and I think I was right to have waited,” says Halle, whose latest film Cloud Atlas opens in cinemas a week on Friday.
“I don’t think I would have been as good a mother in my 20s or even in my 30s as I’m able to be now.
“It took me time to figure out so many things in my life — who I was, how to become happy — before I could reach the point where I could be the kind of mother I wanted to be.”
Nahla already shares her mum’s love of films.
Halle says: “I like Nahla to see movies rather than be watching a lot of TV.
“The last few years I’ve been watching a lot of children’s films with her and it’s opened me up to her world.
“It’s fascinating to be able to see life through the eyes of your child.
“It simplifies a lot. You don’t feel as stressed as you normally would dealing with all the problems that tend to accumulate in the adult world.”

Fiance ... Halle Berry and French actor Olivier Martinez

She has certainly had her share of stressful problems in the adult world — ones which erupted into violence late last year.
Her fiance, French actor Olivier Martinez and her ex Gabriel Aubry, who is Nahla’s dad, exchanged punches outside her Los Angeles home in November.
Both men had to be treated in hospital for their injuries. Halle had wanted to move to France with Nahla, but ex model Aubry went to court to stop them. Then things descended into fisticuffs.
She and Aubry have since reached an amicable custody agreement.
Twice-divorced Halle reckons she has finally found happiness with Olivier, who once dated Kylie Minogue, following a series of “wrong choices”.
Her first marriage, to baseball player David Justice, lasted three years, while her second, to singer Eric Benét, ended after four. Her five-year relationship with Aubry ended in April 2010. Shortly after they split up she started dating Martinez, her co-star in the thriller Dark Tide.

Gabriel Aubry and Halle Berry

Halle reckons not having a father figure in her life has something to do with her past romantic failures. Her estranged dad Jerome left the family home in Cleveland, Ohio, after he and her mum Judith divorced when Halle was just four.
She says: “I think not having had a father when I was growing up affected me negatively because I didn’t have a good role model to follow.
“It’s hard to admit you’ve made the wrong choices and gone through a lot of grief because of that.
“But you learn from your mistakes. I see things much more clearly now. I’m very happy.”
She was also thrilled to be cast in Cloud Atlas alongside Tom Hanks, Jim Broadbent, Ben Whishaw and Susan Sarandon.
In one of the most challenging projects she has ever undertaken, Halle plays SIX different characters who are spiritually linked through time, including a Maori tribeswoman, a sexually-frustrated white Jewish wife and a MALE Asian doctor.

Halle Berry and David Justice

“I never could have imagined being part of any film like this,” says Halle with a smile. “Playing a white Jewish woman was one thing, but playing an Asian man like Dr Ovid was something else.
“I loved it. Never in my life would I have thought anybody would hire me to be an Asian man.
“The film talks about the human soul and how an evil person can be transformed into a hero, in another body, after a single act of kindness. This film is something unique — I doubt if I’ll ever get the chance to be part of this kind of a project again.”
Making the epic reincarnation movie, an adaptation of British author David Mitchell’s best-seller, prompted Halle to look back on events and decisions which dramatically changed the course of her own life.
She says: “I believe you can experience very profound moments of change in life.
“I never would have become an actress if I hadn’t dropped out of high school.
“I was so driven to pursue my dreams that I made a decision to quit school at 17 so I could find my voice as an actress.”

Halle Berry and Tom Hanks

Yet it looked like Halle would have to pull out of Cloud Atlas when she broke her foot two days before the start of shooting.
She admits: “I thought they were going to give me my walking papers. But they threw out their initial schedule and gave up any hope of shooting in chronological order.”
Fortunately for Halle, kindhearted Tom Hanks decided to be her nursemaid on set.
She reveals: “Tom was a dream partner during the making of the film.
“Because of my broken foot, each day Tom would play nurse to me. He’d bring me coffee and soup and just stay with me during breaks in shooting because it was difficult for me to move around.”

Culled from The Sun