Halle Maria Berry (born August 14, 1966 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American actress from Cleveland, and is considered one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood. She's a well-rounded actress, whose roles have ranged from slapstick comedy to gritty drama to romance to action to sci-fi. Berry received several awards for the HBO biopic Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, and in 2001 she became the first black woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her role in Monster's Ball. She has also been involved in the production side of several of her films.
Berry has some notoriety among comic book fans, as while her portrayal of Storm had mixed reception, her performance as Catwoman (2004) was universally panned. She has been a good sport about it, however. When it was announced that she would "win" the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress for Catwoman, she became the second actor (after Tom Green) to accept her Razzie in person, bringing her Oscar along, and parodying her acceptance speech. She received a standing ovation from the audience.
In the 90's and 2000's, she was frequently brought up any time a black man in fiction needed a Celebrity Crush.
Filmography:
- Revlon Spokesperson
- Jungle Fever (1991)
- The Last Boy Scout (1991)
- Boomerang (1992)
- The Flintstones (1994)
- Losing Isaiah (1995)
- Executive Decision (1996)
- The Rich Man's Wife (1996)
- Bulworth (1998)
- X-Men Film Series as Ororo Munroe / Storm:
- X-Men (2000)
- X2: X-Men United (2003)
- X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
- X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
- Swordfish (2001)
- Monster's Ball (2001)
- Die Another Day (2002)
- Gothika (2003)
- Catwoman (2004) (2004)
- Robots (2005) (voice)
- Their Eyes Were Watching God (2005)
- Perfect Stranger (2007)
- New Year's Eve (2011)
- Cloud Atlas (2012)
- Movie 43 (2013)
- The Call (2013)
- Kidnap (2017)
- Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)
- Kings (2017)
- John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019)
- Bruised (2021) — directorial debut
, also starring - Moonfall (2022)
- Amen
- Queen (A 1993 Mini Series based on the life of Alex Haley's paternal grandmother)
- Living Dolls
- Extant
- Former model and pageant winner
Music Videos
- Appeared as a cameo in Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott's 2002 music video, "Work It".
- Appeared in the Limp Bizkit video "Behind Blue Eyes", where she made out with Fred Durst, whom she was rumored to be dating at the time.
Her roles provide examples of:
- Actor-Shared Background: She played a biracial woman in Queen, and is one herself, though Berry identifies as just Black.
- Adam Westing: Her Razzie acceptance speech.
- Beauty Inversion: To achieve her desired look as a homeless crack addict in Jungle Fever she didn't bathe for two weeks.
- But Not Too Black: Her casting as Storm was criticized for not being dark enough, as the character’s from Kenya (at least in the comics).
- Contractual Obligation Project: As it turns out, Catwoman (2004) was this.
- Covered in Gunge: At the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards 2012.
- Half-Breed Discrimination: Her role in the televised movie role, Queen.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: Halle played Dorothy Dandridge (the first African-American actress to be nominated for an "Best Actress Oscar" for her role as the title character in Carmen Jones) in the HBO movie Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. Halle later would become the first African-American actress to win a "Best Actress Oscar" for her performance in Monster's Ball.
- Money, Dear Boy:
- The press loved to talk about how she was paid $10,000 to flash her breasts in Swordfish for no real reason.
- Subverted in X-Men: The Last Stand, where she was initially demanding a higher paycheck. Then Catwoman happened and her salary was much smaller than she had originally asked.
- Name's the Same: The rise of R&B singer Halle Bailey caused a bit of
Memetic Mutation with how easily her name and Berry's can be confused, especially after Bailey was cast in the lead role in the live action remake of The Little Mermaid (1989). - Not Even Bothering with the Accent: She used an attempt at an African accent in X-Men but given that it wasn't very good, she just used her own voice for the other films.
- Older Than They Look: If you didn’t know her birthdate, you’d easily mistake her for someone who’s in her late 20s to early 30s.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: Due to her pregnancy in X-Men: Days of Future Past Storm is given a sudden death as the first casualty in the battle with the Sentinels - as they had to hurriedly shoot all her scenes while Halle could still fit into her costume.
- Romance on the Set: She met and started a relationship with her French husband-to-be Olivier Martinez on the set of Dark Tide.
- The Runner-Up Takes It All: She was Miss Ohio in the 1986 Miss USA pageant and was the first runner up for the Miss USA title. Her later success speaks for itself.
- Star-Derailing Role: Catwoman notoriously reduced her salary for X-Men: The Last Stand, cancelled a spinoff centered around her Die Another Day character Jinx, and resulted in a sort-of hiatus for Berry's film career. These days she mostly laughs about it.
- What Could Have Been:
- A spin-off centered around her Die Another Day character Jinx was in the works, but quickly cancelled after Catwoman failed.
- She announced in 2020 that she was looking into playing a trans male character, but quickly backed down upon widespread criticism on the Unfortunate Implications of such a casting.
