Friday 16 December 2011

Halle Berry's New Year's Eve Body Makeover Workout

Halle Berry's New Year's Eve Body Makeover Workout



halle berry

There is little doubt that Halle Berry has one of the best bods in Hollywood. No matter what role she’s playing or what outfit she’s sporting, one thing’s for sure…it’s impossible not to notice her phenomenal figure (heck, she even makes scrubs look good in her new flick New Years Eve, in theatres now).
If the New Year has you adding a “lean, mean, sexy body of my dreams” to your list of resolutions, then Ramona Braganza just might be your answer.
The celebrity trainer, who also boasts celeb clients like Jessica Alba and Anne Hathaway, trained Berry for three years, five days a week. As a heavily sought-after nutritional and fitness expert, Braganza was responsible for keeping Berry’s bodacious body in tip-top shape both before and after her pregnancy with daughter Nahla.
“Halle is a sweet, caring, genuine person who loves to give her focused attention to whatever she is doing,” Braganza says. “She is hands on and not afraid to get dirty – we once hiked around a lake that required us to do some bouldering and she didn’t mind one bit!"
The first step towards building a Halle Berry body is nutrition and hydration, which according to Braganza, is 50 percent of the equation.
“Eat as frequently as you can so your blood sugar level will not drop,” Braganza advises. “This will keep you from over-eating later."
As for hydration, Braganza recommends VitaminWater Zero Squeezed. “It has the added benefit of eight key nutrients from vitamin a to zinc, and at zero calories per serving it keeps weight-loss goals on track,” she says. “The hydration factor will also keep your metabolism revved up.”
In addition to her expert nutrition advice, all of Braganza’s clients train with her 321 Training Method, a workout that combines intervals of cardio training with intervals of circuit strength and core work.
“Even if you only have a half hour, this workout will not only be a fat burning one, but it will also increase your lean muscle tissue,” Braganza says. “And building muscle allows your body to become more efficient at utilizing the extra calories that you may have stored over the holidays.”
That’s why we were thrilled when Braganza revealed Berry’s workout so we can officially check that “lean, mean, sexy body of our dreams” off our resolution list – like, pronto. Read on for more!

Sunday 11 December 2011

Halle Berry, Tom Hanks & Hugh Grant star in Cloud Atlas (Dir. Tykwer/Wachowski) | Film News

Halle Berry, Tom Hanks & Hugh Grant star in Cloud Atlas (Dir. Tykwer/Wachowski) | Film News

December 10, 2011 by    


A a star-filled cast including Oscar winning actress Halle Berry, Tom Hanks, Hugh Grant, Keith David and Jim Sturgess, have been enlisted by German director Tom Tyker [Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, The International] and The Wachowskis [best known for The Matrix] to work on new film Cloud Atlas, due to hit screens late next year.

Based on the British Book Awards Literary Fiction Award winning, Booker Prize nominated novel written by David Mitchell the film synopsis describes Cloud Atlas as, “An epic story of humankind in which the actions and consequences of our lives impact one another throughout the past, present and future as one soul is shaped from a murderer into a savior and a single act of kindness ripples out for centuries to inspire a revolution.”
The multi-storylined film has the actors playing multiple roles. “The biggest change for me as an actor is to have two different film units and two different film crews and to go between the two from one day to the next,” Halle Berry told NYTimes.
She described playing “a Jewish woman in the 1930s” for the third director, Tom Tykwer, then becoming “an old tribal woman” for the Wachowski siblings the next day, and losing track of fellow cast members amid the layers of makeup and costumes.
“Some days I go into the trailer, I’ll be having a conversation — I won’t even know it’s with Hugh Grant until five minutes in,” Ms. Berry said.
Not much has been revealed about whether or not the film will replicate the book in depth or what the film will look like. Having already created a screenplay on the novel, The Wachowskis will surely create a director’s twist to it.
“It looks phantasmagorical,” said Victor Loewy, a seasoned international film distributor who bid on the United Kingdom rights after watching a six-minute clip at the American Film Market in Santa Monica last month. “It’s so unlike anything I’ve seen in 40 years in this business.”
Cloud Atlas expected to hit cinemas in late 2012 will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. Looks like a good one.

Q&A: The cast and crew of 'New Year's Eve'

Q and A: The cast and crew of 'New Year's Eve'


Robert De Niro and Halle Berry in "New Year's Eve." (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

By TANYA FLOWERS, Special to The Wave



Whether one is looking to make a wholesale life change, start a new relationship/repair an old one or simply experience a first kiss, one thing is certain: The wee hours before the next set of 365 days brings the dizzying fusion of boundless optimism, out-of-character bravery and plain old hope that makes anything seem possible. Even if it’s just for one night.

It is on this universal axiom of human existence that director Garry Marshall and screenwriter Katherine Fugate have built the ensemble “New Year’s Eve,” a thematic follow-up to their last collaboration, the 2010 hit romantic comedy “Valentine’s Day.” As with that film, an all-star cast of actors (so many of them, in fact, they’re sure to be working for well below their typical fee) brings to life a series of interconnected, emotionally-charged stories set in New York City — mostly exploring how love, determination and regret can often force seemingly common people to show uncommon fortitude and compassion. Among those players: Oscar winners Robert De Niro, Hilary Swank and Halle Berry, along with Michelle Pfeiffer, Jessica Biel, Zac Efron, Seth Meyers, Josh Duhamel, Katherine Heigl, Lea Michele, Jon Bon Jovi, Abigail Breslin, Sarah Jessica Parker, Ashton Kutcher, Sofia Vergara and Chris “Ludacris” Bridges. And it wouldn’t be a Garry Marshall picture without a scene-stealing role for Hector Elizondo.


On a recent Sunday in Beverly Hills, The Wave was on hand as the cast discussed the making of the film. Few of them, it turns out, had a clue what “Auld Lang Syne” means.
Have any of you had a particularly miserable New Year’s Eve experience?
Duhamel: I think that if you keep expectations low …

Swank: Exactly when I stopped wanting my New Year’s Eve to be perfect … [is] when it started working out right. I always found when I was young, I was looking for the best party to be at to ring in the New Year — and I always ended up in the car going [flatly], “Happy New Year.”
Marshall: I got to kiss the girl I really liked, and then she turned around and kissed seven other people. Not a good night at all.

How difficult was it to build so many stories with so many stars with different time requirements?
Marshall: [For] many, this is the first time they’re meeting these stars, because they weren’t in the same scenes … What is pretty startling is [that] they could all act pretty good, it turns out, and so when they showed up … we connected well and we moved along. The biggest thing I had to do was hug them — not because I was so attracted, but because they were freezing. So we all hugged each other a lot.
Who were you excited to meet?


Swank: I have a nice story. I got to work with Robert De Niro — and for me, he is on the bucket list. He is at the top of the list of people I have to work with before it’s all said and done. So I got to check that off. My first two days was with him was the real dramatic stuff and I thought, “Well this isn’t very funny.” … So I go in and Halle Berry and Robert were in the room, and they had been working all morning and they’ve got their thing going, and I am kind of the outsider here — I don’t even know the crew or anything. And … I am just trying to get a sense of the vibe before I work, and I walk in and Robert’s in the bed and you know he is kind of lying there. So you hear all this stuff about Robert De Niro and he’s a [method] actor … and [his character is] dying, so I don’t want to get in anyone’s way. So he was lying there, and I am like, “Wow.” … He is kind of giving it to me, like we are connected here. We are connected. Me and De Niro, method. And so I am getting kind of emotional, but the camera is not on me … we’re just getting into the mood of father-daughter. A father dying, you know … I am feeling it. I am going deep with De Niro. The next thing I know, he’s saying, “Anyone got that coffee ?” I am like, “Oh my God, he was sleeping.” He was gone before I ever got there. He had been in that bed all day.
What is your favorite way to spend New Year’s Eve? And do you have any special plans this year?
Michele: I do the same thing every New Year’s. I have done it for the past seven years now. I am from New York, [so] I did the Times Square thing once and I will never do it again, but New Yorkers have this special spot in Central Park where they do a 5K run the minute the clock strikes 12. I ran once, I will never do it again but it is awesome to watch these people run. It’s such a great environment and place to be — so that’s where I’ll be.

Swank: Well, while Lea is running … I’ll be eating pie and drinking champagne and cheering you on.
Michele: I drink champagne — and that’s why I am not running again, because both of those combined doesn’t work very well.
Swank: I actually … stopped trying to chase the perfect place to be, and realized the perfect place to be is with your loved ones and with your few closest friends, around the dinner table over a good meal, talking about the past year and the year to come. And I never make it to midnight. Ever.
Pfeiffer: I also never make it to midnight. I watch, I celebrate New Years at 9 p.m. west coast time. I watch the ball drop in my jammies with some champagne, maybe some pie — whatever happens to be around. I stopped setting those unrealistic expectations for New Year’s Eve many years ago.
Efron: Yeah, we’re going to change that. You’re coming out with me this year.