Halle Berry at 60: Six Roles That Still Have Teeth

The first X-Men centers on the divide between Xavier’s team, who want peace between humans and mutants, and Magneto’s Brotherhood, who believe coexistence cannot work, UPI reported. Berry returned as Storm in X2, X-Men: The Last Stand, and X-Men: Days of Future Past.

Storm deserved more room than those films often gave her. Still, Berry understood the assignment before superhero cinema had hardened into house style. She gave Storm poise, command, and a little old-movie severity. The white hair, the lifted chin, the voice that sounds like it has already seen the disaster coming: she made the character feel older than the franchise around her.

Photos: Harald Krichel · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source 1, source 2

Leticia Changed the Oscar Record

UPI reported that Marc Forster directed Monster’s Ball, the 2001 drama produced by Lee Daniels. Berry played Leticia, the widow of a convicted murderer who begins a relationship with a racist former corrections officer played by Billy Bob Thornton.

The performance earned Berry the Academy Award for Best Actress, making her the first and only Black woman to win that award, according to UPI.

The film is not easy comfort viewing, and Berry does not soften Leticia to make the audience feel noble for watching her pain. She plays exhaustion as a physical state. She plays hunger, anger, embarrassment, and tenderness without smoothing out the contradictions.

The cast also included Heath Ledger, Sean Combs, Mos Def, and Peter Boyle, UPI reported. The movie is available on Prime Video, according to the same report.

Photos: Office of Representative Clark · Public domain · source; Gage Skidmore · CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

Jinx Walked Out of the Water and Took the Frame

UPI reported that Berry played Jinx in Die Another Day, the 2002 James Bond film that marked Pierce Brosnan’s fourth and final outing as 007.

The film sends Bond against North Korean operatives and pairs him with Jinx, an NSA agent, in Cuba, according to UPI. The same report noted the famous image of Berry coming out of the water with a knife at her hip, a nod to the 1962 Bond film Dr. No.

That image has followed Berry for decades, partly because Bond movies know exactly how to turn a body into a poster. What still works is that Berry does not play Jinx as decoration waiting for Bond to name the plot. She has snap. She has comic timing. She looks like she knows the movie is ridiculous and has decided to beat it at its own game.

UPI reported that Toby Stephens, Will Yun Lee, Rosamund Pike, Rick Yune, Judi Dench, and John Cleese also appeared in the film, directed by Lee Tamahori and produced by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli. UPI said the film is available to rent on streaming platforms.

Molly Woods and Sofia Proved the Later Career Had Bite

UPI reported that Berry led the CBS sci-fi drama Extant, which aired for two seasons from 2014 to 2015. It was her first starring TV role since Living Dolls in 1989, according to the report.

Berry played Molly Woods, an astronaut who returns from a 13-month solo mission inexplicably pregnant. Her home life includes her husband John, played by Goran Visnjic, and their android son Ethan, played by Pierce Gagnon, UPI reported. Mickey Fisher created the show, and Berry and Steven Spielberg were among its executive producers.

Extant gave Berry a TV premise big enough to be strange and intimate at once: space, motherhood, suspicion, technology, marriage. It did not always land cleanly, but Berry gave Molly a guarded intelligence that made the mystery feel personal before it felt procedural.

Then came John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum in 2019. UPI reported that Berry played Sofia, a former friend of John Wick who runs the Moroccan Continental, opposite Keanu Reeves. Chad Stahelski directed, with Laurence Fishburne, Mark Dacascos, Asia Kate Dillon, Lance Reddick, Anjelica Huston, and Ian McShane also in the cast, according to UPI.

Sofia is not a long part, but Berry makes the screen tighten around her. She brings history into the room before the script explains it. The dogs, the rage, the old debt to John: it all moves like muscle memory.

Yardbarker, carrying BANG Showbiz, reported that Berry said she feels good about turning 60 and sees this period as her “greatest act.” HELLO! reported that she has shifted from heavy cardio toward lifting weights at least twice a week, and that she has changed her eating after years of a ketogenic approach, adding more carbohydrates, fiber, and protein during menopause.

Showbiz Cheat Sheet reported that searches for “Halle Berry skin” rose 281% ahead of her birthday, citing analysis by Fresha. Let the search engines have the skin. The films still have the face: Dandridge under the lights, Storm watching the sky, Leticia barely holding herself upright, Jinx walking out of the sea, Sofia entering with a score to settle.

Every factual claim above is drawn from these. The reading of them is ours.