So Berry Cool!

What would you do if you were face-to-face with Halle Berry, named by FHM magazine as The Sexiest Woman in the World, and you couldn’t contain your excitement? If you were Adrien Brody, you would probably savor your "moment in time" by grabbing Halle and giving her a wet kiss on national television as Adrien did when he was named Best Actor (for Roman Polanski’s The Pianist) in last year’s Oscars.

Luckily for Halle, a former Miss USA runner-up and record-holder as the first Afro-American to bag a Best Actress Oscar (for Monster’s Ball in 2002), not one of the dozen or so international journalists initially staring (mouths agape?) at her dared do an Adrien Brody during the round-table interview with her for her latest movie, the thriller Gothika (co-presented by Warner Bros. Pictures and Columbia Pictures), at a function room of the L’Hermitage Hotel in Beverly Hills.

Neither did anybody "shock" Halle by asking any personal question, not even about her separation (and imminent divorce) from R&B singer Eric Benet, her husband of barely three years, which was then being played up by US movie magazines and tabloids. But a bitchy woman journalist (I’m sure she was envious of Halle’s drop-dead beauty) tried in vain to ruffle Halle, whose surname should be Ms. Cool, by wondering if Halle didn’t "feel old" in youth-populated Hollywood.

"Am I that old?" smiled Halle, who’s turning only 38 (born on Aug. 14. l966). "Do I look that old?" she added, sounding just a bit annoyed but not offended.

She certainly didn’t look her age, never mind if she has to constantly watch her blood sugar because she’s a Type 1 diabetic (insulin-dependent), just like Gary Valenciano, a disease that hasn’t stopped her from being, like Gary, hyper-active.

So how does she keep fit?

"I do the treadmill and Pilates; I follow a weight-resistance program that combines free weights and machines. My workout includes bicep curls, crunches and chest presses to muscle up the right places."

Especially now that she’s playing the title role in Catwoman, her next role after that of a brilliant criminal psychologist who finds herself accused of murdering her husband (Charles S. Dutton as the chief administrator of the psychiatric ward at a penitentiary for women) and landing in the same ward where she works in Gothika, Halle has been doing more workouts such as a 50-minute cardio sessions at the gym and five 20-minute strength exercises (abs and chest presses) and a diet of oatmeal for breakfast, salad with chicken for lunch and grilled fish for dinner.

What a body she has, a body to die for!

No wonder Eric Benet was shattered by their break-up about which Halle politely refused to talk.

According to US magazines and tabloids, Halle may be lucky in her career but she’s unlucky in love, always falling in love with "the wrong guys." A magazine story said that in her early 20s, Halle was hit so hard in the head by her boyfriend that she lost 80 percent of her hearing in the left ear. Her first marriage to baseball player David Justice also ended in the rocks, driving Halle to almost self-destruct by inhaling carbon monoxide, stopped only by thoughts of her mother.

Hollywood observers surmise that Halle’s reaction to men reflects her resentment against her late alcoholic father whom Halle saw beat up her mother and sister in drunken fury. Her father left home when Halle was four years old and died after a long bout with Parkinson’s Disease without seeing his family again.

Rehabilitated for sex addiction (Michael Douglas suffered from the same affliction), Eric Benet was accused of infidelity by Halle who said in a statement, "Eric and I have had marital problems for some time now and have tried to work things out together. However, at this point, I feel we need time apart to reevaluate our union."

Here are excerpts from the interview:

You did a lot of screaming and running in Gothika. It must be a really physically-demanding role.

"I was in the most pain I remember being in as an adult. One time, I broke my right arm and I was in terrible pain."

How did you relate to your character, Miranda?

"She’s a tortured soul and I really sympathize with her. When Joel (Silver, producer) sent me the script, the character jumped off the page for me. Miranda is so compelling; she’s complicated, intelligent and caught in a truly terrifying situation. From page one, I was immersed in Miranda’s journey of self-discovery and I loved it."

You play powerful women. What makes you feel powerful?

"Different things at different times, you know. What makes me feel powerful now is being able to enjoy all facets of who I am – the sexy side, the strong side, the intellectual side, the mothering/nurturing side, the funny side, the vulnerable side. Being able to live all parts of who I am is what makes me feel powerful."

How do you look at beauty?

"You know, beauty is a state of being, a state of mind. It’s a feeling that you have; it’s not really attached to numbers. I wish we didn’t have an age. I wish the first thing people ask is not, ‘How old are you?’ You know. You should be able to feel however you want to feel. I feel as young today as I felt 20 years ago."

If you have to hand another trophy to Adrien Brody, would you do it?

(Joking) "No. I won’t do it!"

Doesn’t your being diabetic affect your work?

"No, it doesn’t. Not at all. It never has, thank God! I feel as healthy as anybody else. Luckily, I’m serious about it. I eat right, I check my sugar a lot, I take my medicine and exercise."

How about when you have do a movie like Gothika which requires a lot of physical exertion? In almost every other scene, you’re screaming and chasing and practically on the verge of breaking down. Do you go home with the character?

"No. I never go home with my character. I simply ‘live’ the character on the set and leave it there as soon as the shooting is done. It gives me a really good feeling to know that I can just act and not ‘live’ your character. And it’s also kind of cathartic. It seems like it’s draining but actually it’s not. Just cathartic. Whatever is current in my life I always use in my work and it makes me feel good."

What personal experience did you put into your (Gothika) role?

"My character is a psychiatric case. I grew up with psychology in my whole life. Psychology was talked about a lot in our household. I’d gone through therapy when I was a kid because that was also what my mother did. My mom worked as a nurse in a psychiatric ward for 35 years."

You seem to be very close to your mother.

"I’m so close to her that I couldn’t imagine growing up without her. You should remember that I grew up without a father who left home when I was four years old. We survived without him. As I look back, I realize that it would be much harder growing up without a mother."

Did you consult her for any scene in the movie?

"In one scene, Robert (Downey, Jr. as a doctor) was supposed to slap me. Somehow, it didn’t feel right. So I called my mom. ‘Mom, would a doctor slap a patient?’ She said, ‘Absolutely not!’ My mom was such a great source of information for this movie."

It was Robert who broke your arm during a shoot, wasn’t he?

"He was supposed to grab my arm and twist it and it just went ‘Crack!’ I guess Robert did it a bit too hard. My arm was in a plaster cast for several weeks but I kept on working just the same even if I was in terrible pain."

Despite what happened, was it fun working with Robert?

"Oh, yes, it was! Robert is one of the most interesting people I’ve met, one of the most wonderful actors I’ve worked with. Very smart and very talented. And very complex, too. Among the most exciting people are those who are complex. Robert is one of them."

What about Penelope Cruz (as Miranda’s dangerously disturbed patient)?

"We worked well together from day one. We connected right away. I was comfortable working with her and she said she felt the same way, too. Penelope is smart, funny and honest."

You’re the first Afro-American to win a Best Actress Oscar. How do you recall that moment? (It wasn’t her first award. She won the Emmy, Golden Globe, SAG and NAACP Image Awards for her critically-acclaimed performance in the HBO telemovie Introducing Dorothy Dandridge which she herself produced.)

"You know, I watched the tape again and it’s so unbelievable; it was a surreal moment, as surreal today as it was when it was happening. I don’t remember it because I was really out of my body."

Where do you keep your trophy?

"In my home office, on display in an inconspicuous kind of way."

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