The 1 Movie That Made Halle Berry Want to Be a Mother
Halle Berry became a mother of two children after years of devoting herself to her career. She credited one film for pushing her to become a parent.
Halle Berry ‘tried and tried’ to get pregnant after doing this movie
In 2007, Berry starred in the Susanna Bier movie Things We Lost in the Fire. The feature saw Berry playing a mother and widow of two children reeling from the loss of her husband. To make sure her performance was authentic, Berry went deep into the mindset of her tormented character.
“You know that was sort of like a delicate tight rope dance and I did everyday with Susanna trying to find the balance and trying to really find those little moments and hit them just right and really bring truth to the grieving process and not make it overly sentimental and really not be afraid to deal with the anger of it and the resentment of it all and, the bitterness of it. To not be afraid to really express that even when it came to dealing with my children,” she once told Cinema.
But after immersing herself into the role, Berry decided she wanted to become a parent in real life.
“I was meant to be a mother and also, the beauty of working with kids too is, especially these kids. Susanna chose that weren’t like movie kids. You know they were pretty much kids. I think I, Alexis had done a few things but the little boy, not so much. The beauty of children, they’re so honest and I would watch them work sometime and it would be so effortless the way they would do something or say something,” she said.
Berry tried to conceive with her ex-husband Gabriel Aubry at the time.
“So there was a lot of staying home and doing what you do. Like, all the time, around the clock,” she once said on The Oprah Winfrey Show (via Orange County Register).
After 35 negative pregnancy tests, she finally received a positive result.
Why Halle Berry felt ‘Mom guilt’ whenever she went to work
Berry would welcome a second child with ex-husband Olivier Martinez in 2013. Although raising two children by herself, she hasn’t let her parental responsibilities completely stall her acting career. She’s been able to keep a balance between the two, but asserted that it was difficult leaving her family to shoot movies.
“I do find it’s sometimes hard to leave them and go away and do my job. And there’s this thing called mom guilt. I’m not so sure men feel it as quite deeply as we feel it as women, but I fight against that because I want my children to grow and know that they can be parents and they can have careers that they love at the same time,” Berry once told People.
Berry often wanted to explain to her children why she had to step away from the household for a while.
“I’m a single mom and I’m a working mother — the breadwinner in my family — and so working is very much what I have to do, but it’s also what I love to do,” she said. “So when I have to go away to work, I make a point of letting my children know, ‘Yes, I’m going because I have to afford our life, but I also love what I’m doing.'”
Why Halle Berry wanted to have children
It wasn’t difficult for the Catwoman star to pinpoint why she was interested in having children.
“Probably knowing that I will be responsible for helping to shape and grow another human being,” she explained. “And that I have a clean slate and I have a chance to infuse into a child all the ideals and beliefs and you know, the moral values and the system that I believe in and that I can pass this along to someone else. And hopefully, produce a wonderful human being that adds something wonderful to the world.”
