The role Halle Berry didn’t think she could play: “I was so in over my head”
There was a time when Halle Berry was one of the most famous and sought-after actors on the planet. Throughout the 1990s, she established herself as a sex symbol before becoming a superhero icon, portraying Ororo ‘Storm’ Munroe in the original X-Men trilogy. Then, in 2001, she made history by winning the ‘Best Actress Oscar’ for Monster’s Ball—a distinction that, to this day, makes her the only Black woman to have received the award.
Before she hit the big screen, though, Berry was a model who had competed in several beauty pageants, including the 1986 edition of Miss World. Her first film role was given to her by Spike Lee, who cast her in his 1991 movie Jungle Fever. Her character, Vivian, is a drug-addicted prostitute who hangs out with Gator (Samuel L Jackson). The future star was in her mid-20s at the time, and the prospect of playing such a complex part was a daunting one.
“I was so in over my head. I was scared to death,” she told Combustible Celluloid. “I was so green, so new. I was so happy to be there, believing I could play this character, but not sure how.” Clearly seeing greatness in her, Lee took Berry under his wing and helped her settle into this strange new world.
“Spike let me learn a lot,” she continued. “He let me in on the editing process; he let me go to the dailies – I didn’t even know what dailies were.”
Jungle Fever was the movie Lee made directly before Malcolm X and is perhaps best remembered for its soundtrack, which Stevie Wonder provided. It stars Wesley Snipes as Flipper Purify, an architect who is happily married with a young daughter. That changes when he meets Angie Tucci (Annabella Sciorra), a White woman who works as his secretary. Purify weighs up the odds of having an affair with her, which would not only ruin his marriage but leave him vulnerable to racially aggravated social denigration. Gator, Berry’s character’s beau, is Flipper’s brother, a crack addict and a constant thorn in his side.
To get into the role of Vivian, Berry went to extreme lengths to replicate her situation. “I didn’t know how I would get in touch with the psyche of a crack-addicted woman,” she confessed. “I got down and dirty; I didn’t bathe. I went undercover with the police to a real crack house, which was totally insane. I would never do that today. I got to the point where, if that’s what I gotta do, I’ll pass.”
She might not look back on this period fondly, but Jungle Fever was just the stepping stone Berry needed to launch her career. The very next year, she starred opposite Eddie Murphy in the romantic comedy Boomerang, the movie that established her as a viable leading woman. Five years after their first collaboration, Berry appeared in Lee’s film Girl 6, playing a version of herself. Luckily, her career was strong enough at that point to survive that movie’s awful reviews.
Going from the splendour of Miss World to the gritty world of crack addiction is enough to give anyone whiplash, but Berry took it all in her stride. Had Jungle Fever not gone as well, then perhaps everything that followed wouldn’t have happened. She still probably should have showered, though.
