A step too far: The career move Halle Berry will never make again
Though the glitz and glamour of Hollywood are alluring enough for you to assume that there is very little downside to working in the industry, the truth is that a lot of hard work goes into making your favourite movies. Something Halle Berry can certainly attest to.
There are few directors who have braved the challenge of starring in their own films, with the likes of Jesse Eisenberg, Bradley Cooper and Ben Stiller having leading roles in films like A Real Pain, Maestro and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. While the likes of Quentin Tarantino and Spike Lee have given themselves smaller parts in their own projects, the idea of performing a leading role is incredibly daunting, requiring you to almost be in two places at once as you move from the front of the camera to the back between takes and offer feedback to your costars.
Given the fact that you wouldn’t normally criticize someone you are performing with, it almost sounds inappropriate and slightly unprofessional, contradicting the unspoken code between actors by merging the roles together. And after attempting this herself, Halle Berry has since reflected on the challenges of this role and why she wouldn’t do it again.
Berry has had a groundbreaking career ever since her first feature film role in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever, becoming known for her commitment to method acting and bold creative choices. With leading performances in the X-Men franchise, Cat Woman and Monsters Ball, which won her an Academy Award for ‘Best Actress’ in 2002, the actor has since gone on to spread her wings and try her hand at directing.
In 2020, Berry directed and starred in the Netflix film Bruised, which follows a former mixed martial arts fighter who finds herself training for one final fight, struggling with her past mistakes and the unexpected arrival of the son she abandoned many years earlier. The film was the project she had directed, with many eyes watching to see if her acting ability would translate to another role. The story was incredibly emotionally heavy and demanding, which no doubt required an enormous effort from Berry to juggle the demands of this character while also being able to separate herself from the weighty emotions in order to oversee the rest of the production.
After the release of the movie, Berry was asked if she would be interested in directing another film, with Berry saying, “Oh, for sure. I won’t star in and direct, but directing for sure”. The actor later revealed that she is directing another project that is nearly the polar opposite of Bruised, in which there are few details besides it being a love story.
There are many directors who have shared similar experiences around starring in their own projects, describing the jarring nature of having to switch between the logical and emotional side of your brain as you delve into your mind to pull out a performance and then detach yourself from this in order to objectively judge what’s been captured on camera.
Kieran Culkin recently starred in A Real Pain alongside Jesse Eisenberg, detailing a similar struggle but from the perspective of someone who is sharing scenes with a multi-hyphenate artist, describing the strange nature of being criticised by someone who just performed with you.
After the demanding experience of working on Bruised, it comes as no surprise that Berry would prefer to stick to one role, and perhaps there are many other directors who feel the same way about this experience and find the job easier when they can focus on one role.
