The role Halle Berry only played for the paycheque: “Sometimes you have to make some money”
Halle Berry has played every dramatic role Hollywood can dream up, and some comic ones, too. She was a ‘Bond girl’, an X- (wo)man, and Catwoman if you were able to watch that movie without finding an excuse to leave the room. The point is that, like most actors, Berry has taken some roles just to pay the bills.
It’s not unusual for actors to talk about balancing commercial projects with passion projects. Taking on big-budget, mainstream roles (like Swordfish) helps fund smaller, artistic films that may not pay well but are more personally fulfilling. Many actors do this, mixing Hollywood blockbusters with indie films or theater work to maintain both financial stability and creative satisfaction.
Speaking with Combustible Celluloid, Berry speaks on her experience with sex and nudity on screen and the discrepancies between different projects which required it. Or at least paid her for it. Monster’s Ball, for example, is about a very racist Billy Bob Thornton, who administers the death penalty for condemned criminals. He falls in love with the wife of someone he’d widowed in his day job, and they have a very graphic sex scene. Berry has discussed before about not being taken seriously due to her looks
It’s reported that “this, of course, brings to mind Berry’s quick and needless topless scene in her last film, the critical flop Swordfish.” where she’s leaving very little to the imagination in front of a very confused-looking Hugh Jackman. If you liked Monster’s Ball, there’s an argument to be made that the sex scene serviced the plot. Berry certainly does.
She continues “Those are polar opposites,” she says. “One is very necessary and the other isn’t necessary at all. In Monster’s Ball, it’s essential. It wasn’t about titillation. Without it, you have no second half.”
Berry doesn’t really mind in either case, though. She comments, “I was always worried about what people would think if I did [a nude scene]. Secretly I always thought it was okay — if I saw nudity in movies I didn’t think anything of it. I was worried that our social milieus in this country tell us that it’s wrong. Yet it’s okay to kill people and shoot people in the head. When I really started thinking about the contradiction of it all, I decided that I really should do what I want to do and not really care what people are going to think.”
“This is the reason you do the Swordfishes,” she continues. “As an actor, it’s still your job and you’re making a living and supporting your family. Sometimes, to make these artistic choices, you have to make some money so you can go off and do something you believe in for practically free.” which is a sentiment that will make sense to most people. Most of us have done jobs we found distasteful to pay rent and buy groceries for considerably less money than Halle Berry made to take her shirt off in Swordfish.
