Halle Berry Once Shared Why She Expected to Be Done With Acting in Her 40s
Halle Berry is currently 58 years old and is still going strong in the film industry. However, her younger self might’ve been a bit surprised by how long she decided to keep acting for.
What Halle Berry thought she’d be doing in her 40s
Berry spent the majority of her life acting in some capacity. She started her career soon after she graduated high school, although it was a profession she sort of fell into.
“I knew a woman that owned a modeling agency and I started modeling,” she once said in an interview with W. “While I was there I started studying at Second City and that’s when one of my teachers there said, ‘I think you should be an actor. I think you’ve got some talent.’ And I thought ‘well, I don’t really want to be an actor. I want to be a journalist. I’m gonna go to college and I’m gonna be a journalist. I like to write.’ And he said, ‘Okay but I think you should be an actor.’ So, one thing led to another and I took that path.”
It’s been a path Berry’s been taking for decades, now. She’s been in-demand since her breakthrough role in Jungle Fever, where she didn’t shower for 10 days to play a drug addict. But as fulfilling as her career turned out to be, she thought she’d retire somewhere in her middle-aged years. In a resurfaced interview with The New York Times, it was noted that Berry predicted she’d be running an art gallery by 45. Additionally, she believed would’ve settled down with a family by then as well.
“Honestly, I can’t see myself doing this my whole life. It’s much too stressful on your health,” she said.
But Berry’s continued acting beyond 45. In her older years, she’s even worked on projects that have left her with broken ribs, which might not be how she expected to spend her 50s, let alone her 40s .
Halle Berry once shared why turning 40 was magical for her
Perhaps Berry was encouraged to stay in the film industry after seeing how much it’s grown since she first started. For the most part, it seems that aging has affected Berry’s career for the best.
“I never thought I’d be doing this as a career, and then at this age and stage still being able to work at the level that I work on,” she told E! News. “But I came along at the right time when women are having longevity. There was a time when you were 40, you were kind of done. So it’s so nice to be a part of Hollywood now.”
In many ways, life was just beginning for Berry when she hit her 40s. In a 2007 interview with Collider, Berry shared what she learned about herself entering her fourth decade on Earth.
“I would say a magical thing happened when my … when the big 40th birthday came,” she said. “It was really magical in a way for me. I felt like a light kind of just went off and may be because I felt like at 40, I had the right to you know say and be who I wanted to be and say what I wanted to say and not accept what I didn’t want to accept, like may be it was me that felt the shift, but I do think I’ve gotten wiser and I’ve learned lots of lessons.”
To further clarify, Berry pinpointed the specific changes she went through the moment she exited her 30s.
“I felt more self-assured, more confident,” she said. “I felt like half my life is probably over now and I felt like I had the right to really be authentically who I want to be and say what I want to say, and not accept what didn’t feel right and I don’t think I felt confident enough to do that before 40 really. Not across the board on all levels. I was doing it in certain areas but now, I can happily say I can do that across the board.”
“I was getting there slowly by slowly when I turned 35 but at 40, I really get it in a real way. It doesn’t matter what they think,” she added.
