Actress Halle Berry sat down with Variety for a wide-ranging interview inc which she touched upon her Oscar win, her fights with X-Men director Bryan Singer and more.
Berry is at her most frank when discussing her historic Oscar win for Monster’s Ball, in which she became the first and only Black woman to win Best Actress.
Berry is still conflicted about what her Oscar win represents. “It’s one of my biggest heartbreaks,” she told Variety. “The morning after, I thought, ‘Wow, I was chosen to open a door.’ And then, to have no one … I question, ‘Was that an important moment, or was it just an important moment for me?’ I wanted to believe it was so much bigger than me. It felt so much bigger than me, mainly because I knew others should have been there before me and they weren’t.”
In retrospect, Berry says it was naive to think a statue would change anything. “Just because I won an award doesn’t mean that, magically, the next day, there was a place for me,” she says. “I was just continuing to forge a way out of no way.”
As for her time working with Bryan Singer on the X-Men movies, Berry revealed that she clashed with Singer before retiring the character in 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past.
“Bryan’s not the easiest dude to work with,” Berry revealed. “I mean, everybody’s heard the stories — I don’t have to repeat them — and heard of his challenges, and what he struggles with.”
“I would sometimes be very angry with him,” Berry said. “I got into a few fights with him, said a few cuss words out of sheer frustration. When I work, I’m serious about that. And when that gets compromised, I get a little nutty. But at the same time, I have a lot of compassion for people who are struggling with whatever they’re struggling with, and Bryan struggles.”
“Sometimes, because of whatever he’s struggling with, he just didn’t always feel present,” Berry continued. “He didn’t feel there. And we’re outside in our little ‘X-Men’ stage freezing our ass off in Banff, Canada, with subzero weather and he’s not focusing. And we’re freezing. You might get a little mad.”
Read the full Variety interview with Halle Berry here.
