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Halle on her heroes

(Glamour)
Updated: 2006-05-18 11:28

At the age of 39, Halle Berry is always looked as successful. The Best Actress Oscar winner owns beauty and wisdom together. But Berry's also had her share of public lows: an abusive marriage to baseball star David Justice and a conviction for leaving the scene of a car accident among them. As a child of a white mother and a black father, Halle Berry learnt to get through tough situations already.

In a recent interview with Glamour, she talks about race, feminism and the women who continue to inspire her today.

Dorothy Dandridge is one of her Hollywood heroes. Besides Dorothy, there's only one other woman whose life she would want to portray: Angela Davis [the former Black Panther and radical civil rights activist]. Halle said, "I tried to produce a movie about her. Everyone said, 'She's not very sympathetic.' I said, 'you can make a sympathetic story out of anyone's life if you get to the heart of why people do things.' "

Halle Berry has given the most moving Oscar acceptance speech in history when she won for best actress in 2001. For her, in the past five years, black women in Hollywood have been inspired and empowered to create roles for themselves. "We're not just saying, 'Poor me. Nobody's putting black women into films.' We're taking it upon ourselves to make change happen." She said.

Halle is mixed race with a white mother and an African American father. The actress Rashida Jones once said, "When you're mixed race, you get your heart broken every day." When asked whether she agrees with her or not, Halle said, "I get my heart broken every day, but it's not because I'm mixed race-it's because I'm a woman and I wear my heart on my sleeve!" She said she would love to shout [the details of her life] from the rooftops, because people could learn from her experiences like she learns from theirs. "But sometimes when you're too open, people misuse what you say. So I've learned to keep those things to myself. It's not because I want to, but because I have to."

As a woman, Halle Berry has her own definition of feminism. "For me, it's really about being a woman who is comfortable enough in her own skin to be who she is, to believe authentically what she wants to believe and to have the courage to decide that for herself."
Her character in the Bond movie Die Another Day, Jinx, is described as "a female Bond", who is a tough woman but who also wears an eye-popping bikini. Halle thinks the character fits into her definition of feminism. "I can be intellectually solid, politically active and play a strong character without forgetting I'm sexually alive. We shouldn't have to make excuses for walking around with the bodies we have." She said.

For Halle Berry, her mother is definitely one of her heroes. "I learned my work ethic from my mother," She said, "she's a nurse and has never called in sick. Even if she were dying she'd be putting on that nurse's hat and going to work. She has great moral fiber, too. As a kid, I would come to her with questions and she would say, 'I know what you want to do, but what's the right thing to do?' "

Dorothy Dandridge is one of her Hollywood heroes. Besides Dorothy, there's only one other woman whose life she would want to portray: Angela Davis [the former Black Panther and radical civil rights activist]. Halle said, "I tried to produce a movie about her. Everyone said, 'She's not very sympathetic.' I said, 'you can make a sympathetic story out of anyone's life if you get to the heart of why people do things.' "