Berry and Willis may “mindf*ck each other” in “Strangers,” but she other plans for her head

By Damara Popoola

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 4/13/07 – Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry will be evading Bruce Willis in thriller “Perfect Stranger” starting today, but she’s got a project in the works that may ease some tensions that have recently been stirred.

“It’s a movie called “Nappily Ever After” and it deals with this issue of women and their hair,” Berry told Hollywood Today. “As women we define ourselves by our hair. I always have my whole life. When my hairs not right, then I’m just not right and many days I won’t leave the house if my hair is not right. We get so fixated on our hair and so this movie is about this woman whose hair gets damaged and she decides in a drunken stupor to shave her head completely bald.”

So NOW we understand Britney Spears. And maybe if Don Imus had been able to see this film he‘d still have his radio show. While the movie name could always change in light of events this past week, Berry herself believes the film itself is making an important statement and is even going to extreme ‘lengths’ for the role.

“It’s something that’s really important for women, but ultimately people,” Berry said, “so I’m looking forward to doing it and I’m going to shave my head.”

Looks and image have been an issue for the “Gothika” star for some time. “My mother is a white woman and my fifth grade teacher was a black woman and these two women helped me come to terms with my being bi-racial and what it meant to have a white mother but be a black woman. You look at me you see why I identify with the black community because I look black. I grew up feeling very black. The fact that my mother was white was only something someone would comment on if they saw her. But until that nobody would ever think I was white or even mixed.”

Oddly enough, her public may not define her that way, and with films such as “Class Act” and “Catwoman,” she is cast in roles traditionally reserved for whites. Which is something fellow multi-racial Barack Obama hopes to do.

“I can relate to Barack Obama. I remember after the Oscars a lot of people said I wasn’t the first black (to win) because I’m not really black. (We’d) probably have to walk down the street with a sign that says ‘I’m half black’ for anybody to not look at him as a black man and me as well as a black woman.”

Her latest role in “Perfect Stranger” was written for a white actress, though the producers were swayed by her acting. She plays a journalist trying to track down the killer of her childhood friend To the delight of bigtime fan Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show,” she summarized her and Willis’ complex cat and mouse game in the film by saying “We mindf*ck each other.”

It’s an interesting role reversal for the actress who is more accustomed to being chased down by reporters than being one. Despite being hounded, though, Berry tries to keep it all in perspective.

“I’ve become fair game,” she said. “People ask me the unthinkable questions and I’m constantly asked personal questions, things I don’t really want to talk about, but I know the name of the game. So there have been certain times where I’m willing to disclose certain aspects of my personal life especially those that I think might help someone else.”

Most recently, stories have been addressing Berry’s suicide attempt after her 1997 divorce from baseball star David Justice, an event she claims has been taken out of context.

“That was an old regurgitated story,” Berry said. “It wasn’t my wish to go into all of that again in this time of my life. I talked about it on Larry King in 2002. I was on Oprah talking about it when it was relevant and I felt like it was important to help other women and share it with them.” She also said, “It’s just not where I am today and I really hate that it has been presented like that’s where I am today and it’s really on my mind to talk about because it’s really not. I’m in such a great time in my life right now that it wouldn’t be my wish to really revisit that, but another outlet did that and made it seem as if it were current again and it just really is not.”

Besides her suicide attempt, journalists have also latched on to the fact that Berry once said she uses online chat rooms, something her character in “Perfect Stranger” does throughout the entire film.

“Somehow since that’s been reported I think I’ve come off as a twisted deviant that’s just on the internet posing as someone else. Parents don’t worry about me. I’m not the one targeting your kids; it’s not me,” Berry said.

Nevertheless, she has explored chat rooms and can understand why so many flock to them.

“When the whole internet first became the thing to do I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be fun to go on and try to find some anonymity’? As celebrity always seems to be around me I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to talk normal to somebody,” Berry said. “And so I tried that and very quickly realized that it was a very fake exchange. It offered me nothing. If I was not being real that person wasn’t being real with who they were and I spent too much time trying to answer their questions and have a conversation and not disclose my identity. It seemed like a big waste of time after a while.”

Even being herself hasn’t worked for the actress since she says most people in chat rooms automatically assume she’s a “quack” and kick her out. It’s just another burden of being famous.

While “Perfect Stranger” hits screens Friday and “Nappily” is currently in production, Berry can next be seen in “Things We Lost in the Fire” alongside Benicio Del Toro. The family drama is supposed to be in theaters October 19.