Halle Berry Interview Bruised

Halle Berry Interview: Bruised

Halle Berry talks about stepping behind the camera to direct Netflix’s Bruised and what drew her to the story of MMA fighter Jackie Justice.

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Bruised, coming to Netflix on November 24 after its current limited theatrical release is a film whose onscreen power is echoed by its journey behind the scenes. Halle Berry, who stars in the film as MMA fighter Jackie Justice, took on the challenge of her directorial debut and came out on top. The story, meanwhile, follows her character as she returns to her career after walking away from it – and her young son – years ago.

Berry spoke to Screen Rant about the intense training she underwent in preparation for the movie, and the themes of redemption that she hopes reach the audience.

Screen Rant: What spoke to you about the character of “Pretty Bull” Jackie Justice and the film Bruised?

Halle Berry: Well, I love MMA. I’ve been a fan of the fight game from boxing to MMA forever. I love a good boxing story, a good fight story – underdogs [and] that feeling of people finding redemption – that always makes me feel good and I relate to it.

But Jackie Justice, I loved the fracturedness of all of these characters. They were all broken and all struggling to survive and sort of put their pieces back together and be the best versions of themselves. I love deep, broken characters. I think they’re very human and I think most people can relate to these characters. We’ve all been fighting for something, and we win, we lose, we make mistakes. We all are looking for forgiveness at some point at some time. I thought they were just relatable people.

I think this is the best MMA movie I’ve ever seen on screen to date so far. I wanted to ask, how did you approach that? How do you balance that action and directing at the same time while being in the scene?

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Halle Berry: Yeah, that was a challenge, but I knew the best thing I could do for myself was to spend the time doing the work. So I did spend probably over two years just training, training, training, learning all these disciplines, getting as good as I possibly could so that these things really were set in my body because I knew when it came time to shooting, I would have so many pressures and so many things to worry about that I had to have these different forms of martial arts clearly, solidly in my body. That training proved to be really detrimental when it came time to shoot.

Can you talk to me about the training process? You’re used to being in great shape for so many of these action movies, but this is something completely different.

Halle Berry: This was all the way different. I pushed myself further than I even thought I could go; to tell you the truth and to train with the champion [Valentina Shevchenko], to be in there with the reigning champion, who’s at the top of her game it was such an honor for me to learn from her. And she took the time and she would go over it and over and over it. To just fight with her, to spar with her, you learn really quickly, what to do and what not to do. She was so sweet and so kind and gracious, and she had to learn how to movie fight, I say, and I had to learn how to fight. We felt like we were in this thing together and we became really good. I just love her to death. We became such good- you go through a camp together, you become really tight really quickly.

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Sheila Atim plays your trainer Buddhakan and she is brilliant in this film. Can you talk to me about what she brought to the role that wasn’t necessarily on the page?

Halle Berry: Well, I knew that this character had to be an otherworldly type figure. It had to be someone that just walked into the room and the molecules in the room would just change somehow because they had such a presence. When I saw Sheila’s audition tape, that happened to me. I thought I stopped breathing. I was like, “Oh my God, this is the embodiment of what I had in my mind.” She was like the most beautiful gazelle, but her acting was seamless. It was subtle. It was so real that she was the first character that I knew I had to cast.

By the end of this film, I had a tear in my eye and I wanted to hug every single mom. The MMA element is brilliant in this, the action is amazing, but the human element is why I stayed. What are you hoping people take away from Bruised?

Halle Berry: I hope they take away that we all have a right to be forgiven. We can all find redemption. We can have second chances, last chances, other chances, and that we all have the right to put our pieces back together. That we’re all fractured and we’re all broken and psychologically, we can put ourselves all back together. It’s only over when we say it’s over.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/bruised-movie-netflix-halle-berry-interview/

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