E-mail a friendHalle Berry
airdate December 6, 2005
Halle Berry's path to superstardom took her from high school prom queen and National Honor Society member to the beauty pageant world to making history as the only African American Best Actress Oscar winner. Since her breakthrough film role in Jungle Fever, she has starred in numerous critically acclaimed and successful projects, including Bulworth, cable's Introducing Dorothy Dandridge and ABC's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Berry also received an Emmy nod as an exec producer of HBO's Lackawanna Blues.
Halle Berry
Tavis: All this week we're looking back at some of our favorite guests and conversations of this year. Tonight, Halle Berry.
Somebody made the distinction to me one day that - how'd they put it, change is inevitable, but growth is optional. So things change, but growing is something totally different.
Halle Berry: This is true.
Tavis: It seems to me that one of the growth journeys you've been on, not that you always weren't, but to your earlier point. You've become much more open about, and less shy about being proud of this blackness that is in fact a part of you. Again, I didn't know that you were knee high to a frog, to use your phrase, but certainly nowadays you're much more comfortable with that.
Do people ever get in your ear, managers, agents, publicists, I don't know if they're here on the stage or not, but anyway, do people ever get in your ear and say, 'You ain't got to say that, you're Halle Berry, you're universal. You're a crossover. Why you gotta keep bringing that to folks' attention? Just don't raise that. I know publicists can tell you not to say certain things. Do you ever hear that sometimes from people?
Berry: And when I have heard that, those people have been axed from my career.
Tavis: So you have heard it at times? You've heard it, and you axed them.
Berry: They're not a part of my team. Because that was a part of who I always was. When I came to my manager, I was very connected to my blackness and I had a real strong sense of identity and self that way, and I knew the community I related to and identified with most. And that's always been a part of who I am. So anybody that's been in my life for any significant amount of time support who I am and applaud that I continue to connect to my community.
And they realize that everything I do is to better, you know, black people or black women in film in this industry, and these arts that I love so much. So to take that away from me or to deny me that voice would be taking away essentially a big part of who I am, and nobody that loves me would do that.
Tavis: Speaking of you doing more EP work, and speaking of beautiful women and the connection between the two, did I read somewhere that you signed up Alicia Keys for a project?
Berry: Yes. Now how did I get that lucky?
Tavis: How did we get that lucky? Halle and Alicia on a project together. How did that happen? What's the project?
Berry: It's called "Composition in Black and White' about Philippa Schuyler. She was a young child prodigy in the '40s, a pianist. I mean, perfect for Alicia. Like when I played Dorothy, somehow I knew I was meant to play that. She's meant to play this character. She's a product of an interracial relationship and it just deals with sort of what life was like for a gifted young black, interracial woman, black woman, back in that time period.
And what she had to go through and the life with her mother and her father. Her mother was also white, which, so is Alicia, so it's perfect for her, and it's a deep story. It's deeply educational for all of us, about that time period, and it's one I know Alicia will just, she's going to just shine in it. I'm excited.
Tavis: Let me ask you. This is the first time that we've had a chance to talk, we've seen each other off television, but not that we were hanging out for dinner or anything like that.
Berry: But you don't call me.
Tavis: Oh, get out of here, whatever. We've seen each other in other places.
Berry: I'm single now, haven't you heard?
Tavis: I've heard you're single. We'll talk about that off camera. (laughs) There's a conversation for off camera, Halle. That said, though, we've seen each other in other places, in social places, but I haven't had a chance to talk to you on camera about this. Have you felt any pressure, any burden, to use the word you used earlier, any expectation that came from standing onstage holding that Oscar?
Berry: The moment I stepped off out of the light into the dark shadows of the back, I felt the pressure. It came and sat down on my shoulders. And within 24 hours, I decided I was not going to let that happen. Because that is a burden and that's a pressure that I'm just not strong enough and don't wish to carry. And it was the expectation of the entire black community came and sat on me that night.
And I decided that I'm going to approach my career the way I always had. I'm going to continue to do the things that got me to that stage, and that was take risks, and dare to be my authentic self, and do things differently. Essentially I'm carving a path for a woman of color that has never been paved before, so I have to continue to sort of think out of the box, and somehow be the trailblazer.
And that means not following anybody. And when you make your own way, folks have a lot to say about it, because it hasn't been done before, and it's scary, to me as well, but it's scary to other people. So I've had to sort of keep my eye on what got me here, what got me here, keep doing that, even if people disapprove.
Tavis: Speaking of disapproving, art is so subjective, as we all know. Some roles you pick, you understand why you chose them, whether the movie works or doesn't work, you understand why you did it in the space and time that you chose to do it in.
But it seems to me also that while you're not judged on one project, it's a body of work, you have to make real clear and distinct and good decisions more often than not, if you're going to chart a career that you want to be remembered. So how are you picking things that you want to act in these days, versus producing?
Berry: Well sometimes it's really about, I read a script and I think, does this feel different? And if it feels too familiar, I pass. Because I've learned that lesson, I've gotten what I'm supposed to get from that kind of character. So I have to feel like there's something new for me to explore and learn about myself. And, as in the case with "Catwoman," that was a chance for me to try...
Tavis: What was that?
Berry: Tavis. "Catwoman.' Don't you remember her?
Tavis: Okay, yes, I remember that, yes.
Berry: You know, that was strategic in the sense that it was time, I thought, for a black woman to be a superhero in her own right, you know. I'm always about trying to advance women and then black women. And I thought, now is the time to do that. She was a positive character. She was totally in control of self, self-sufficient, very much how I think the modern woman is today.
You know, we're very different than our mothers and fathers. And I thought this was an opportunity to do that. On some levels, did not work, but that's why I did it, because it's always about trying to push the envelope. And if it had worked, we all would have been geniuses. You know, and you have to take those risks, because they will pay off, and sometimes they won't.
Tavis: So how emotionally vested are you in stuff like that? When it works, you get really high, and when it doesn't work, do you get really low, or are you pretty even-keeled all the way through?
Berry: I'm learning in my career how to be pretty even, and not get too high with the highs. And that means, if you don't get too high and get out of your head when something is good, then you don't have to accept too much of the low. It's about sort of knowing why you do things, throw it up against the wall, put it out, and let it be what it will be. And be on to the next thing already. That is sort of how I'm evolving. Because it can be really personal if you really take it all to heart.
Tavis: If you let it, yeah. So I read from a story that you've been growing in areas, as I hope we all are in our lives. When we talked in one of our earlier television conversations, I went back to look at this the other night, to prepare for this conversation, to see what we had talked about in an earlier TV show, and I asked you in one of our conversations...
Berry: (laughs) It's going to be bad; I've got the feeling.
Tavis: Not bad. I asked you in one of our earlier conversations whether you were comfortable being a sex symbol, and you turned to the camera almost incredulously and said, is that what I am? Am I a sex symbol? So are you ready to accept this.
I'm trying to find the right word, are you ready to accept this yet, you admit that you are now. Or are you still trying to run away from the apparent beauty that you are, and what that means? Or are you still blushing as you were when I asked that question before?
Berry: Is that what I am? Said who? Who said? Tavis says?
Tavis: So the answer hasn't changed. All right. I'll leave that alone.
That is our show for tonight. A reminder, you can catch me weekends on PRI, Public Radio International, check your local listings. See you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from LA, and as always, keep the faith.
Back to December 6, 2005