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May 2006
X-MEN: THE LAST STAND - An Interview with Halle Berry




X-MEN: THE LAST STAND - An Interview with Halle Berry
By: Wilson Morales

Continued...

By having an Oscar and some clout in the business, does it provide you the resources to find a project that you can do and find the team it needs to get it distributed?

HB: Oh yeah and I do that. Vincent Cirrincione, my partner and I are producing and I’m learning too that I’m getting a lot of joy out of producing for others like I’m producing a movie for Alicia Keys where she gets to act and I just get to produce. That I’m finding a lot of joy and value in. There are three to four other projects that I’m also producing for myself because I’m learning that if I want the great parts what I think are the great parts for me to play then I have to make them happen, but like anything, it takes time. Realistically, it takes like three to four years to get projects off the ground, to get the funding and to get a good script. Getting a good script can take 12-15 rewrites and that takes time. Each time a writer writes it takes 3 to 5 months to write it, so it doesn’t happen like that like people think it does.


Can you talk more about the Alicia Keys project?

HB: Yes, it’s called “Composition in Black and White” and it’s the true life story of Philippa Schuyler, who was a child prodigy pianist back in the 1940s and she was half-black half-white and it’s about her struggle with her amazing gift and her struggle with her culture and her heritage and how she fit in at that time. There’s so much of a struggle of Dorothy Dandringe in some ways, but it’s a really touching and poignant story of an amazingly brilliant young woman.


How come you didn’t want to play the part? Then again, she does play the piano.

HB: She plays better than I do and I think what’s going to make it great is because it is Alicia and she really can sit there and what you’ll be seeing is real. Initially, when I bought it ten years ago, I did buy it for me to play. As I’ve grown and evolved, it’s just as important for me to create opportunities for other women and other women of color and other people as it is for myself. Last year, when we did “Lackawanna Blues” and S. Epatha Merkerson won all those awards, I couldn’t be happier. Even though I was up against her for some of those awards, nobody couldn’t have been more happier for her than me because I was part of that and I knew that I helped her to have that moment and live a dreamlike year that I also had myself before so it’s not about me doing things for me. I’m getting a lot of joy in doing things for others.


Can you talk about shooting “Perfect Strangers” in New York? Were you here for a while shooting that?

HB: Yeah, I was here for 4 months shooting that. It was great being in New York. I love New York and I love New Yorkers. They tell just how they feel about it and I love that about New York.


In going back to X-Men, how was working with Dania (Ramirez) and the fight scenes?

HB: She’s tough. We’re not professional stunt people obviously, so every once in a while, our limbs got away from us.


You can take this question and make fun of it, but which fight scene was better? The one with you and Dania or with you and Sharon (Stone from “Catwoman)?

HB: (laughs). I don’t know. I don’t think it’s a question for me to answer. You will have to tell me.


Who are some other characters that you would like to explore?

HB: Probably the only one, and I mean the only one, and I’ve been asked to play Coretta Scott King and many, many great women, but the only one that at some point in my life, not now, but maybe 5 years from now, I really would love to play Angela Davis. She’s the only other woman that I think I would be able to sink my teeth into. So far, I’ve been placing seeds about wanting to do this and the reaction I’m getting is that she wasn’t a sympathetic character and that I would never going to be able to make that. You can understand anybody when you understand why one does whatever is they do; good or bad, whether you agree or not. There is so much that can be told about her life. I can make her sympathetic. Just give me a chance.


If someone did a Halle Berry story today while you were still alive, and you had a choice of actresses to play you, is there anyone that comes to mind? How about Jurnee Smollett?

HB: I worked with Jurnee in “Queen”. She was like 5 years old. I’ll tell you this. I don’t know about playing me, but when thinking about who would do my life justice, and who’s a formidable actress that I think would really get into it, I would say Kerry Washington. I love Kerry Washington and she’s young enough, much younger than me, and I think she’s amazing.


What do you think your personal legacy will be?

HB: I think about this sometimes, especially as I’m thinking about having children and raising children and what I can give them, I would just want people to see me as a woman who dared to live her life as her authentic self and do what she believed in and then when others did it or others didn’t understand why, I would hope my legacy is one of a woman just living her life the way she wanted to on her terms. I think that’s what I would want to leave for my children and not worry what people think about whoever they are; and that’s hard to be that girl and be that person and be caught up in what people think. It’s designed that way, especially in this industry, so that’s what I think.

 

 

 


X-MEN: THE LAST STAND opens on May 26th, 2006


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