November 10, 2010In an all-new interview with the talented Halle Berry, the actress reveals to ET that she's currently dealing with feeling guilty about delving back into her movie career after being a stay-at-home mom to her daughter Nahla for more than two years.
"For the first two and a half years I took off and I just wanted to be a mom now that I'm going back to work in a real way, it's trying to not feel guilty about doing what I love to do and what I have to do," Berry said at the AFI event, "On Acting -- A Conversation With Halle Berry," Tuesday night. "I have to leave her and that's hard."
Berry also talked to us about her new movie 'Frankie & Alice,' which she says although there's Oscar buzz, she just hopes people see it.
"I would take an Oscar any time they want to give it to me," she said. "But I do have one and I feel very accomplished in my industry and that’s something nobody can ever take from me. It's about doing good work doing things that challenge me putting stories out there that I think are interesting helping women of color keep moving forward those are things that are really important so if people just see this I’ll be really happy."
"Frankie & Alice" hits theaters December 10 in Los Angeles and across the country in February 2011. For more info, log onto www.frankieandalicemovie.com.
Halle Berry will not play Oprah Winfrey in a movie about the famed talk show host's life.
"I'm not going to play Oprah," the Oscar winner says in an episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show to air Monday. "No, I was just like [pretends to be on the phone], 'Hey, Oprah, Am I playing you? Just tell me because nobody has told me this.' I don't know where these rumors come from."
Is there even a movie being made?
"I don't know," admits Berry. "Not that I wouldn't want to play Oprah if there was a movie. I just don't know how this stuff gets made up.
Winfrey will launch her network, OWN, on Jan. 1 after stepping down from her talk show after 25 years.
Can Oscar lightning strike twice? That's what Freestyle Releasing and Halle Berry are hoping for after moving the former best actress winner's new film, "Frankie and Alice," to a limited release in Dec.
Directed by Geoffrey Sax ("Othello," "White Noise"), the '70's era true story finds Berry playing Frankie Murdoch, a stripper trying to deal with her dissociative identity disorder or multiple personalities, one of which just happens to be racist (uh-oh). The film debuted at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, and while the picture didn't set the Croisette on fire, Berry got strong notices for her performance. Now, Freestyle will release the picture for a qualifying run in New York and Los Angeles on Dec. 17, before a regular theatrical release occurs on Feb. 4, 2011 (assuming Berry gets a nomination).
In a statement released today, Berry says, "Bringing this story to the big screen has been a challenging, yet very satisfying, filmmaking experience. Frankie's struggles with mental illness came at a time when the medical community and the public were still grappling with the veracity of multiple personality disorder, and I approached this role with feelings of humility, yet great responsibility."
A report from the always reliable Pete Hammond says 10,000 screeners will be mailed to SAG and Academy members which is impressive for a company the size of Freestyle. The studio is hoping to duplicate the last minute success of "Crazy Heart" last year which found Jeff Bridges a surprise contender and eventual awards season rock star in the best actor race. Unlike the best actor field last year, the 2010 best actress pool is deep and highly competitive. If Berry wants to land a nomination, she'll have to find a way to knock out expected players such as Natalie Portman ("Black Swan"), Annette Bening ("The Kids Are All Right"), Leslie Manville ("Another Year"), Nicole Kidman ("Rabbit Hole"), Jennifer Lawrence ("Winter's Bone") and Tilda Swinton ("I Am Love") among others.
Berry, who is also a producer on the film, appears more than ready to hit the awards circuit to help promote the picture. First up? AFI Fest 2010 will feature a "Conversation on Acting with Halle Berry" on November 9th at 7pm at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Something suggests more "X-Men" fans will be there than Academy members, but it certainly can't hurt her cause.
Katori Hall's The Mountaintop, which received a 2010 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Play and was previously announced to arrive on Broadway this season, will now likely make its Main Stem debut in fall 2011, according to the New York Times.
The Times also reports that the production will likely star Academy Award winner Halle Berry and Oscar nominee Samuel L. Jackson; in fact, the delay in the show's Broadway arrival is due to the busy schedule of the two film stars.
The play, which imagines a meeting between an enigmatic hotel maid and Martin Luther King, Jr. the night before his assassination, would cast Jackson as MLK and Berry as the maid.
Jean Doumanian Productions in partnership with Sonia Friedman Productions will produce the acclaimed play, which will be directed by Kenny Leon (Fences, A Raisin in the Sun).
Set on April 3, 1968, The Mountaintop, according to press notes, "is a gripping reimagining of events the night before the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., as he retires to Room 306 in the now famous Lorraine Motel in Memphis, after delivering his legendary ‘From the mountaintop’ speech to a massive church congregation. When room-service is delivered by a young woman, whose identity we puzzle over, King is forced to confront his past, as well as his legacy to his people." The Mountaintop received its world premiere in a three-week run at Theatre 503 in June 2009, and subsequently transferred to the West End’s Trafalgar Studio 1.
Katori Hall, an American actress and playwright, grew up in Memphis and is a child of the post-civil rights era. She is a recent graduate from the Juilliard School playwriting program and was the recipient of William Inge Theatre Festival's 2010 Otis Guernsey New Voices in the American Theatre Award. She is an alumnus of both Harvard and Columbia Universities.
Halle Berry was worried her latest film would be shelved
Halle Berry has admitted she was worried her new movie Frankie & Alice would be shelved.
Academy Award buzz may be building for the moving psychological drama, but the Oscar-winning star said she was just pleased to have audiences finally see the film.
“Honestly, it’s been a long time coming for me. I thought it was just going to end up on a shelf and now this year, surprisingly, we got a distributor and here it comes,” she explained on the red carpet at this year’s AFI Fest in Hollywood.
“You know, buzz is nice but I’m just happy this movie is coming out – that’s the award for me right now,” she insisted.
The film, which is also produced by Halle, is based on the harrowing true story of Frankie Murdoch, a woman suffering with multiple personality disorder in Los Angeles in the 1970s.
“It fascinated me when an actor friend told me about it,” Halle said.
“I thought ‘wow, a black woman who has an alter that’s a white somewhat racist woman’ – just that line alone was intriguing to me and I wanted to understand how something like that could happen, so that’s where it started,” she revealed.
Halle Berry arrives at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre for the AFI Fest on Thursday (November 9) in Los Angeles.
The 44-year-old actress participated in “A Conversation with Halle Berry,” where she talked about her career and influences, as well as her role in the upcoming film Frankie & Alice. Halle is hard at work on the campaign trail for this year’s Academy Awards. She is no stranger to the awards as she won the coveted Oscar for Monster’s Ball!
Over the weekend, Hallegrabbed french food with her boyfriend Olivier Martinez.
FYI: Halle is wearing an Elie Saab
Pick-me-up: Halle Berry loads-up on caffeine and chills out in a bath robe on set
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 9:06 PM on 8th November 2010
She may be a famous movie star, but Halle Berry isn't above double-fisting Diet Cokes when the day is dragging on.
But unlike the rest of us, she was able to throw on a cosy dressing gown on her break.
Spotted heading to catering on the set of her new movie Truth Or Dare, Halle looked stunning in her character's outfit of skin-tight black mini skirt and a lilac
silk blouse with high-heeled sandals.
Diet coke break: Halle Berry grabs drinksduring a break from filming her new movie in LA
Robed-up: Halle relaxed in a terry dressing gown as she picked up some lunch from catering on set
Returning to her trailer with her cans of fizzy drink, the Monsters Ball star, 44, looked focused on work as she held paperwork in one hand.
But the next minute she'd covered up in a matching lilac terrycloth dressing gown and swapped her punishing heels for a pair of worn-in Birkenstock sandals.
The actress picked-up a healthy-sized lunch box before heading back to her trailer for an obviously much-needed break.
Very little information has been released about the new film, directed by Peter Farrelly, one half of the Farrelly Brothers.
The comedy duo's past hits Dumb And Dumber, Stuck On You and There's Something About Mary give a hint at the type of film audiences may be in for and Halle was recently spotted wearing a prosthetic face and in a wheelchair outside a hospital, leading to speculation that her character might have a allergic reaction at some point in the plot.
Hard to miss: Cameras caught a glimpse of Halle's enormous prosthetic breasts
She also filmed scenes wearing enormous fake breasts recently.
According to internet rumours, Halle plays 'a career driven woman set up to take the fall for corporate embezzlement after her sexy college friend from Las Vegas drops back into her life.'
Truth or Dare also features The Hangover star Ken Jeong and Stephen Merchant, star of Extras.
Halle has filled her career with dramas and thrillers, with the occasional action movie.
After a string of dark thrillers including Dark Tide, Frankie and Alice and A Perfect Stranger, it seems the actress is lightening up.
After Truth or Dare, Halle has signed on for Shoe Addicts Anonymous, about 'four people who join a support group for people who are addicted to shoes.'
After that she will team up with Jamie Foxx and Martin Lawrence next year for another comedy The Skank Robbers.
She is also rumoured to be joining ensemble film New Years Eve with queen of the rom-com Reese Witherspoon and Lea Michele and Zac Efron.
Then it is back to serious films with The Surrogate, a psychological thriller about 'An infertile couple who hire a young college girl to be implanted with the couple's last fertile egg, unaware that their surrogate is insane until she is mid-term with their child.
