Halle Berry filmed several iconic moments with her Oscar-winning role in Monster’s Ball. But some of those moments were a bit rough to watch for her husband at the time Eric Benet.
The surprising ‘Monster’s Ball’ scene that made Halle Berry’s ex-husband feel uncomfortable
Monster’s Ball required Berry to do a lot of scenes that might’ve been out of the actor’s comfort zone. For instance, she needed to remove her clothes for her much talked about love scene with Billy Bob Thornton . It was only the second time in her career where she went nude for the camera. The experience was far from pleasant.
“We’re not doing what it looks like we’re doing, and I think sometimes it’s hard for people to wrap their brain [around that],” she once told Chicago Tribune. “There’s a roomful of people, and it’s very calculated in a way. I mean, I shot that scene with Billy Bob — the movie was only a 21-day shoot and we shot it like day 19, and I didn’t know him beforehand, so it’s a very unnatural thing to be doing.”
What made the love scenes even more unnerving was her marriage at the time to her ex-husband Eric Benet. But those scenes, however, seemed to be the least of Benet’s worries.
“But Eric is so supportive of who I am and where I am trying to go as an actress and as a black woman. So it was refreshing to know that he could see the movie, and not feel insecure about it, or be like a ball and chain. He’s very much about letting me fly,” she said in a 2002 interview with The Morning Call.
What Benet took issue with were the scenes where Berry was belittling and abusing her overweight child.
“That was just as uncomfortable for him in a different way,” Berry said. “He has a daughter, and I’m now her mother. To see someone abuse a child like that and to have it be me, his wife — he thought, Oh, my God, who’s this monster?”
Halle Berry wasn’t initially wanted for ‘Monster’s Ball’
Berry wasn’t initially thought of for Monster’s Ball. The actor personally campaigned for the part after reading the script, despite the director’s reservations about her.
“I just wouldn’t go away,” Berry once told Chicago Tribune. “[Forster] let me have a meeting with him, and I just discussed why I liked the script, how I saw myself as the character. I was just really passionate about it, and at the end of the day I think I just wore him down.”
The film’s director, Marc Forster, clarified that Berry didn’t exactly wear him down. But he was persuaded by Berry’s passion to give her a chance.
“I wasn’t sure if I wanted to have a glamorous movie star in the role, and also I wasn’t sure if she would be willing to do the sex scene as I envisioned it because she is a movie star,” Forster said. “So we met, and I brought up my concerns, and she said she would de-glamorize herself and she understood what I was going for in the lovemaking scene, and she said she would be willing to go there.”
The challenge she faced getting the lead role in Monster’s Ball was a recurring theme in her career.
“I find myself sometimes in the odd situation of sometimes having to fight for black roles because sometimes in people’s minds I don’t fit the image of what a black woman would be,” she said. “I don’t know why, but I don’t. And then, of course, when they’re written for a white character, I have a hard time convincing them that sometimes me being in it, being black, really won’t change the movie.”
Halle Berry had a long talk with her ‘Monster’s Ball’ son
Berry was concerned that her pretend-son in the feature would’ve taken her disparaging words personally. So, she took the time to console the late actor so that reality wouldn’t blur with fiction.
“That was harder than being butt-naked doing the love scene, because he was a real child and he had real issues of obesity,” Berry said. “I was really worried that, in making a movie, we could damage him in some way that would affect the rest of his life. So I talked to him a lot. Before and after every scene, I would hug and kiss him. And since the movie wrapped, I’ve stayed in his life. That’s important.”