Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 24, 1993 TAG: 9309230131
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BARRY KOLTNOW ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But Halle Berry, who stars in the movie "The Program," which opens today, is doing just that in a fashionable Los Angeles hotel room to prove a point.
"It's right here, on the side of my nose," she says with absolutely no embarrassment. "Can't you see it?"
"Sorry, I can't see it," the embarrassed interviewer says.
"Maybe it's blinding you," she says with a laugh. "I woke up this morning and there it was, big as life."
The point the near-flawless actress was trying to make was that she is not perfect, that all the beauty titles and critical notices gloss over that she is a real person with real-person problems, like zits and bad-hair days.
"They don't see me in the morning," she said of the writers who focus on her looks. "Sometimes it can get pretty scary."
But Berry, 25, is not blind. Neither is she dumb. She knows that her beauty got her in the door, and she plans to use it to help her make a career out of this Hollywood movie-star thing.
"I don't think I'm bad-looking, and I know my looks have made a difference in some situations," the former Miss Ohio said. "I know that element is there, but I also see a lot of people around me who are much more beautiful than I am.
"Beauty can be used as a tool to draw people in. But once you're in, you've got to be able to do something. If you can't, then you're just another pretty face."
In "The Program," a critical look at college football, Berry plays a student who tutors a young star running back, whose lack of education points up the problem many young athletes face as schools ease them along to take advantage of their skills.
"It was not a stereotypical role for a black woman," Berry said, "but it also was a film whose message I believed in. David [husband and Atlanta Braves star David Justice] and I talk about this problem all the time, and I'm glad Hollywood is starting to address it.
"There are millions of kids in the ghetto who all think they're going to be professional athletes. Well, that's not real life. These kids must learn that education is the key out of the ghetto and not sports."
The Cleveland native said she has wanted to be an actress since she was 5.
"I used to watch `The Wizard of Oz' over and over again and then re-enact the whole movie, from Judy Garland's part down to the dog," she said.
Berry, who married Justice nine months ago (he asked for an autograph, she gave him her telephone number), said the pace of her career has been slower than she would like, but she said she has been able to maintain a self-imposed rule against exploiting herself.
"Listen, I could be starring in movies right now," she said. "I could be in `Menace 2 Society II' or `Boyz N the Hood IV,' but I don't want to do that kind of stuff.
"It's very difficult for any actress in Hollywood, but it is especially difficult for a black woman. It's a struggle to get considered for roles in big movies because studios and producers are afraid of interracial relationships. If they hire you, maybe they can't hire Tom Cruise."
Although Berry said she thinks the success of "The Bodyguard" helped fight those attitudes a bit, it didn't really apply to most actresses.
"It was a breakthrough in a way, but in a way it wasn't. It was Whitney Houston, who is a mega-crossover-star who is really colorless. And then it was Kevin Costner, who also is that big. They can do whatever they want in a movie, but for an actress like me, it doesn't help. I just have to keep climbing that ladder.
"That's why I took the roles in `Father Hood' [the recent film flop with Patrick Swayze] and `The Program.' They were small roles, but they were meaty."
by CNB