Intimate scenes on screen are always challenging, though for Halle Berry, it only needed a little push and inspiration from a fellow actress who had done it before. While the X-Men star is no stranger to going bare in movies, she admitted battling the fear.
Berry’s love scene in 2001’s Monster’s Ball elicited a lot of controversies due to its graphic representation that even the director was worried she would disagree to proceed. The actress only expressed one condition before getting on with the scene.
Halle Berry Shares How Nicole Kidman Inspired Her To Strip Bare In Monster’s Ball
In her interview with The New York Times, Catwoman star Halle Berry revealed that she would have said no to the bed scene in Marc Forster’s Monster’s Ball if it wasn’t for her previous experience going bare in Swordfish (2001). She explained:
“In Swordfish, it was totally gratuitous nudity, and I knew it. But I probably wouldn’t have been able to do the s*x scene in Monster’s Ball if I hadn’t shown my breasts in Swordfish.”
Berry said that her only condition to do the scene was for her co-star Billy Bob Thornton to be as naked as she was, which is totally fair. The Oscar-winning actress also sought inspiration from Nicole Kidman, who exposed herself on stage in the 1998 play The Blue Room. The Gothika star was shocked when she saw Kidman’s performance. She told the Irish Examiner:
“I remember when Nicole Kidman was naked on stage, and I thought, ‘How could she?’ Eventually, when the opportunity presented itself to me, I just bit the bullet and did it.”
She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Monster’s Ball, claiming it as the biggest breakthrough in her career, and it would never have happened if it wasn’t for her topless scene in Swordfish. Berry added:
“I would never have been able to do Monster’s Ball, for which I won the biggest accolades of my professional life if I hadn’t had the nerve to do it in Swordfish. I had to get over that fear for myself.”
This momentous event in Berry’s career was also a testament to her hard work as a Black woman in Hollywood. She is the first and only Black actress to win the award in the entire history of the Academy, which she described as “heartbreaking.”
Fans Thought Halle Berry’s Oscar-Winning Movie Would Destroy Her Career
Every movie project is a risky business, and many assumed that Monster’s Ball would ultimately end Halle Berry’s career. The film had a lot of sensual and racial undertones that would have evoked criticism from the viewers. The actress shared via Vanity Fair:
“People around me said, ‘Ooh, it’s a very low-budget movie. It’s very risqué. There’s some s*xual components to it that maybe you don’t want to do. The subject matter, it’s got a lot of racial components to it. I don’t know if you want to touch this.’ And those were all the reasons why I loved it.”
Berry was totally unfazed by these remarks, and she was even willing to risk her career for a project she was passionate about. She further explained:
“I thought, ‘If this ends my career,’ like many people thought it would, I thought, ‘Well, I’m going to end my own career on my own volition. I’m going to end my career doing something that inspires me, that ignites me, that excites me.’ And it was a risk, and I love taking risks, and I’ve always known, if you don’t risk big, you can’t win big.”
And now, Halle Berry has an Oscar award under her belt and stellar movie projects such as X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) and John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019).
Monster’s Ball is available on Prime Video.
Sources: The New York Times, Irish Examiner, Vanity Fair
