Halle Berry’s ‘Bruised’ Was Originally Meant for a 21-Year-Old Irish Actor
Halle Berry got into the shape of a world-class fighter for her directorial debut feature Bruised. But initially, the feature was meant for an actor who couldn’t have been anymore different from her.
How Halle Berry ended up in ‘Bruised’
Berry wasn’t initially attached to Bruised as the film’s lead character. She wasn’t even supposed to direct the project. The script for the movie floated her way, and the main character immediately resonated with her. In an interview with Variety, it was noted that Berry pitched her version of the script to producers.
“It’s an old genre; there’s so many great fight films that have been made. I made the point why it would be worth retelling an age-old story with this new twist,” she said.
Blake Lively was looked at to star in the film. But Berry felt focusing on a middle-aged Black fighter would’ve offered a fresh alternative to a familiar story. Soon, the only problem was finding a suitable director for the project. That was when someone suggested Berry herself to direct the film. After agreeing to shoot the feature, Berry found directing more fulfilling than acting in some ways.
“As an actor, I always show up and do my part, and I can only do what I can do,” Berry said. “Being the director, I have a part in the totality of every department. I get to have a voice. That was different, and I really loved that.”
But one of the challenges of directing was completing her version of Bruised, and rewriting the character to accommodate her better.
“I never directed before but because I’d been on film sets for 30 years, there were some things I just intrinsically knew,” she said, according to Daily Brun. “But I still had to figure this out for myself. I had to think about it and reimagine the script because it wasn’t written for me. It was written for a 21-year-old Irish Catholic white woman. I had to figure out what the world would be, make shot lists [for] production, figure out what the look and feel and tone of the film would be.”
Halle Berry went to dark places for ‘Bruised’
Berry threw herself deeply into the role of MMA fighter Jackie Justice for Bruised, so much so she incurred a few harsh injuries. But perhaps for Berry, the emotional toll the role took was just as intense as the physicality. Berry’s character in the flick is tormented dealing with a traumatic history. This required the Oscar-winner to get into a frightening headspace.
“I had to get into the headspace of being so fractured and so broken and having in many ways a loveless childhood that my character would do the unthinkable, which is leave her child,” she said in an interview with Business Insider. “That’s just not what women do. And I think most women also don’t sign up for a blood sport. We don’t really want to get punched in the face. So I had to find ways to deeply connect to those two things that as a woman I would never do: leave my children or fight for real. So that was my work. To understand who does that and why do they do that.”
But Berry didn’t mind the challenge. She’s used to playing particularly dark characters in features like Monster’s Ball. To her, those are the types of parts that she can really sink her teeth into as an actor.
“Those are the best roles. When you really have a departure from yourself and create something that is authentic and new. It was a challenge for me to go to some of those dark places and to do all the work. I trained two years to look like I was a real fighter. Those are big challenges that I live for. I have worked really hard in my career to find roles like this that I can really do my thing,” she said.
