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She's played a Bond girl, a mutant and a catwoman. She's won an Oscar, a Golden Globe, an Emmy and all kinds of accolades for her barrier-breaking acting roles. She's been a mainstay on the "most beautiful" lists for more than a decade. And at the age of 40, Halle Berry still has the striking good looks of the 24-year-old ingenue who made her movie debut in Spike Lee's film Jungle Fever.If she doesn't look any older, by her own admission, Berry (who has always had a spiritual, philosophical side) is a lot wiser. Two divorces have left her with a definite opinion about marriage. That's not to say that she's given up on love -- she's been seeing 31-year-old Gabriel Aubry, a French-Canadian model, for more than a year now. The other important person in her life these days is her mother, a retired psychiatric nurse who lives just down the road from Berry's Los Angeles home, where the actress has been spending a lot of her time lately.
Still, her career continues to keep her busy. This month, moviegoers get to see the older, wiser, still-stunning Berry play an investigative reporter in Perfect Stranger, a murder mystery costarring Bruce Willis. The next role she's contemplating is one she hasn't yet tried: motherhood.
RD: Everyone knows you as a woman of grace and accomplishment. But let's go back in time. Tell us about your childhood, which sounds difficult.
Berry: Yeah, but not as difficult as it's been reported. I always had food and clothes. I had a wonderful, responsible parent who loved me.
RD: Your mom raised you and your older sister, Heidi, pretty much on her own, right?
Berry: Yes. She was very strong and independent. Imperfect, as every parent is, but she did the best she could. Did we have our challenges, two little black girls being raised by a white mother? Sure. We didn't have a lot of money, but we had enough. I never remember going without anything that I ever thought I wanted or needed, so somehow she made it all work out.
Berry: That was a challenging part of my childhood -- the missing link. It's hard when you grow up without a father, whether you're male or female, but it's particularly hard for little girls not to have that image of what a man is. It's forced me to struggle with what to look for, because I didn't really have a role model. RD: How do you think that has affected your relationships with men?
Berry: Adversely, obviously. I never had a good image; I was attracted to what I knew, which was usually not what was good for me. RD: Your father died in 2003. Were you ever able to make peace?
Berry: Not while he was here. I was just getting over my anger and sense of betrayal and abandonment. I was getting to the point where I could understand how and why he could do that, and then he died. I have done a lot of healing in his death. I don't think somebody has to be here for you to heal your relationship. RD: After your mother and father split up, your mother moved you and Heidi to a different neighborhood.
Berry: We were living in the inner city in Cleveland. One day when I was in the third grade, my mother drove by the high school where my sister and I would go, and the place was full of graffiti. Instantly, she decided to move us to the suburbs, to what she thought was a better school -- which it was. But she moved us to an all-white environment, and I don't think she really thought how that would affect us. All of a sudden, I went from an all-black neighborhood to an all-white environment. My sister and I were among maybe five black kids at school. RD: How did you cope?
Berry: I was struggling with my identity -- being around all these white people. Where did I fit in? Was I good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, talented in any way? This teacher, Yvonne Sims, one of the only black teachers at the school, was like an angel. She came along when I felt myself going in a direction that could have been really bad. She took me in and loved me, and through her I knew that I was okay and smart and talented. She will always be someone I admire. She's beautiful, a wonderful mother, married 30 years now. Just the epitome of what I would want to be. RD: After high school, you moved to Chicago to pursue a career in modeling. Is it true that when you moved to New York to begin your acting career, you lived in a shelter?
Berry: Very briefly. My modeling career was pretty lucrative, but I gave that up to move to New York to study to be an actor, and I wasn't working for a while. RD: How old were you then?
Berry: I probably was about 21. But a girl had to do what a girl had to do. You can do that when you're 21 and ambitious and your eyes are this big and you don't want to go home.
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