The specialized press was so hard on her that they used her name to coin a new type of cinematic curse. acquaintance The ‘Halle Berry effect’ refers to all those performers who, after winning that coveted statuette they have been dreaming of all their lives, opt for projects of such dubious artistic and/or commercial value that they end up throwing away the credit they have just earned in just a few months. Hilary Swank, Forest Whitaker, Angelina Jolie… the list is long. Berry, the actress who gives her name, was never forgiven for breaking a historic glass ceiling by becoming the first black woman to win the Oscar for best actress, and for continuing her career with two films that were savaged by critics, the thriller psychological Ghotika and considered one of the worst superhero movies in history, CatwomanThe reactions were so negative that they could have buried her career forever, but Berry, “accustomed as a black woman to bear the negativity, to struggle and to be a fish that swims alone against the current,” turned a deaf ear to the predictions and continued her journey despite the fact that she would never again reach the Hollywood Olympus that had been promised to her. An effort that is finally rewarded.
With more than 33 million views in its first three days of release, The unionBerry’s new film, The Last of Us, has become the most-watched film on Netflix in 63 countries and one of the platform’s summer hits. In this action comedy, the Ohio native plays an international spy who recruits her high school ex-boyfriend (Mark Wahlberg), a worldly construction worker, for a high-risk operation. Although critics have not been very pleased with the film’s merits, the success of the film has not been a surprise. The union It deserves mention for having a 58-year-old woman as its action heroine — “she’s an impressive tough chick on screen,” he notes. The Hollywood Reporter— and for having rehabilitated the media image of an artist who had not been the headliner of an incontestable success for more than a decade.
She herself seemed to have lost hope of ever again ringing in the heads of film directors. casting for a top-level project. “Sometimes I think that moment meant nothing. Really nothing. I thought it would have some symbolism, but it didn’t,” she reflected on the historic speech she gave on March 24, 2002. Through tears, Berry dedicated the statuette to all those “nameless, faceless actresses of color,” such as Dorothy Dandrige or Angela Bassett, who “from that night on would have a chance because the door has been opened.” Not only did the doors not open for her colleagues —more than two decades later she remains the only black woman to be awarded Best Leading Actress at the Oscars— but hers were closed shortly after Adrien Brody stole a kiss from her on the stage of the Dolby Theatre. Berry has been aware of the decline, confirming that her career has not gone as she expected. “Am I on the last throes of my career and I haven’t realized it? “I’m finished and nobody has told me anything!” she joked in an interview with this same newspaper a decade ago.
In a media environment so prone to undermine the aspirational image of a successful woman with any excuse, the controversies that Halle Berry has been involved in in her intimate life have not helped to keep her privileged status in the industry intact. Just a few days ago, the American was back in the news when she filed a lawsuit to gain exclusive custody of her son with French actor Olivier Martinez, arguing that the father has maintained “turbulent and harmful” behavior that has negatively impacted Maceo, 10, who has serious learning problems. A couple of weeks ago, the actress also lost in court the request to force her ex to attend the shared parenting therapies agreed upon in their separation.
Tensions between the parties are constant even after signing a divorce agreement last year, which was reached after a long judicial process that began just two years after their marriage. The main reason for their breakup was the couple’s inability to move to France with Maceo and the actress’s first daughter, Nahla, and Martinez’s detachment from life in Los Angeles. A judge prohibited their move, considering that the girl should remain with her biological father, the model Gabriel Aubry, and the tension between both parties led to a fight that ended with Aubry – a broken rib and bruises on her head – and Martinez – a broken hand and neck injuries – in the hospital.
Berry has been living with violence since childhood. “I grew up with an alcoholic father who abused us, both verbally, emotionally and physically,” she recalled in an interview about her father, who left the family home when she was just a child and who died shortly after her Oscar win. After making a name for herself as a model and finishing sixth in Miss World 1986, it was filmmaker Spike Lee who gave her her first break in the world. Jungle Feverin which she played a drug addict crack and the role for which she went eight weeks without showering. It was precisely this role that won over her first husband, baseball player David Justice, to whom she was married from 1993 to 1996.
Berry sank into such a deep depression after the separation that she tried to take her own life by inhaling carbon monoxide from her car, but the thought of her mother — “she had sacrificed so much for her children that killing myself would have been incredibly selfish” — made her abandon the attempt. She was not so lucky with her second husband, the R&B singer Eric Benét: a year after saying “I do” in 2001, they announced that he had entered a sex addiction clinic and that they would later separate. Since 2020, the singer has shared her life with another singer, the composer and producer Van Hunt. In her own wordsher partner makes “the day seem brighter, makes everything seem better.” “When you are loved and supported as a woman, everything changes. It makes me feel butterflies in my stomach,” she said.
In addition to continuing to cultivate her career as an actress, with the upcoming release of the horror film Never let go Berry has dedicated her efforts in recent years to her work as an activist. The Oscar winner has founded Re-spin, a digital platform focused on health and wellness for women in perimenopause and menopause and frequently comes to Washington to do lobby She is seeking greater government investment in research, treatment and awareness. Her goal, she says, is to end social stigmas. “When women have babies we have birthday parties, baby shower. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could celebrate this stage too, instead of thinking that we have to be relegated because our life is over and we are no longer valuable? was questioned in the magazine Time.
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