Actress Halle Berry chats with Blockbuster.co.uk's John Sheridan about the challenges of playing a suddenly-single parent in Things We Lost in the Fire, and about how the experience prepared her for real-life motherhood.
A moving and emotionally compelling drama about two people brought together by a shocking twist of fate,
Things We Lost in the Fire stars Academy Award winners
Halle Berry and
Benicio Del Toro as a widowed mother of two young children and a down-and-out drug addict whose unlikely friendship ultimately gives both the strength they need to carry on.
Despite her popularity and Oscar pedigree,
Berry admits she fought hard for the role of bereaved single mum Audrey Burke. "I think most actors have to fight for the good parts," she says. "They're so few and far between, especially for women."
"Audrey wasn't written as a black character," she continues. "So I wasn't the first thought on anybody's mind. But very early on, I said to my manager, 'I know the studio's not thinking of me, but if I could just meet with the director...'"
Berry got her wish when Danish director
Susanne Bier swung by New York to meet her for coffee. "I hoped maybe Susanne would be able to see outside the box," explains
Berry. "She could, and within ten minutes of us meeting, she asked me how I felt about wearing no make up for the movie, because that was a requirement: no make up at all. I said okay, and that was that.
"I loved the fact that there were parts of this movie that really scared me. Both as an actress and a human being I entered uncharted waters, and was excited by the challenge of dealing with issues that I'd never really faced before. As soon as I read the screenplay, I felt a real connection to the movie, and to the idea that people who endure traumatic circumstances in their lives, as we all do, are somehow strengthened by the experience. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Before shooting began
Berry threw herself into an exhaustive research process she hoped would help her get to grips with her emotional role.
"My journey was to try to understand the psyche of a woman who had just lost the most important thing in her life," she explains. "I wanted to understand the stages of grief and what being a mother means in the face of that kind of tragedy. Then I wanted to find the hope on the other side. That was my under the surface work."
Berry explains that her friends were an essential part of the process. "There are many people in my life who have lost their parents and other loved ones, and this is going to sound maybe a little crass, but I never really bothered to investigate fully what they went through and what they felt. My job as a friend was just to be supportive and cheer them up and make them feel better, not to sort of, be a therapist and pick their brain.
"That changed while I was doing my research for this movie. Suddenly I was picking their brains about their loss. What did they feel like and what were the stages of grief? And then I had to take that information and interpret it in my own way and funnel it through my character. Her way was very different than any of my friends described but their information gave me a foundation to build on.
"What I learned from them, and what I hoped to bring to the movie, was that it was really important to bring truth to the grieving process and not make it overly sentimental. To deal with the anger, resentment and the bitterness of it all in as honest a way as possible. To not be afraid to express that even when it came to dealing with my character's children, because when you're suffering through loss you aren't always the ideal parent. That doesn't mean you don't love your children and don't want what's best for them, but people are human beings and you aren't always your best self, especially when you're dealing with something as tragic as losing your partner. Really the whole process was about finding the confidence to go to those dark places because that's where the truth is."
Berry claims that her time spent on the movie helped to prepare her for real-life parenthood. "Working with the kids in this film convinced me that I needed to be a mother," says Halle, who gave birth to her first child, daughter Nahla, in March 2008. "Motherhood is one of the hardest things any woman can do, but I felt it came naturally to me. That I was meant to be a mother. It definitely helped prepare me for the real thing. Really I loved every second that I got to be with the kids, even when they weren't being their best selves.
"The beauty of working with children is they're so natural," she continues. "They don't have technique. They don't have all these things rolling around in their heads that someone like myself or Benicio might have. They just get on and do it."
As for the best thing about being a mum in the real world, Berry reveals it's "...probably knowing I'm now responsible for helping to shape and grow another human being. Just the thought of that inspires me. I have a clean slate to work with, and a chance to infuse into my child all of the ideals, beliefs and moral values that I hold important. What's important is to produce a wonderful human being who adds something wonderful to the world."