Halle Berry Once Shared How Being a Role Model Hindered Her Career

Halle Berry once opened up about the expectations she had being a role model to younger fans.

Halle Berry has been very careful about the film roles she pursued ever since her Jungle Fever days. But there was one type of film role she used to reject for the sake of all her fans who’d look up to her. Soon, however, Berry discovered doing so might’ve just been limiting her career.

Halle Berry wondered how many great film scripts she was trying to turn down for the sake of being a role model

Berry knew the importance of having a role model as much as anyone. She’s been very candid about the identity issues she experienced growing up with interracial parents. Since her mother was white, the X-Men star turned to television to find powerful and positive images of black women. One of the actors she discovered, Diahann Carroll, set Berry on the path to becoming an actor herself. Carroll was the star of the classic sitcom Julia, and left quite the impression on a very young Berry.

“Seeing Diahann Carroll being the star of a show and playing a mother who was a nurse, who was educated, who was beautiful, just rearranged me,” Berry said in the documentary American Masters: How It Feels to Be Free. “It made me realize I had value and I could turn every week to a woman that looked like who I would aspire to be when I grew up.”

“I was a Black child being raised by a white woman, so I didn’t have those images in my household,” she said. “Finding them on television and through movies became very, very crucial to me.”

Berry found herself in a similar position after becoming an actor as well. Because of her past experiences, she might’ve been a bit too conscious of her influence and responsibilities as a role model. This desire to lead by example caused her to reject more risqué movies earlier in her career. But Swordfish marked a turning point in Berry’s filmography. In the film, Berry would strip nude in front of the camera for the first time. When she was questioned about this decision, Berry simply thought it was time for a slight change in her career.

“I was obsessed with wanting people’s approval because so many black people would say, ‘My daughter aspires to be like you. Stay positive,’” she said in a 2002 interview with Hello!. “So I’d try to stay that way. I’m sure I passed up wonderful scripts because I knew they required nudity. But then I realized it’s not my job to raise those girls.”

Halle Berry shared what it’s like for her daughter to have plenty of role models growing up

Berry’s daughter is growing up in a completely different time than her mother’s, one where there’s no shortage of role models. Nahla, who she shares with ex-husband Gabriel Audry, has Berry herself to look up to when it comes to positive imagery. At the same time, Berry sees that there are plenty of other faces of color for Nahla to relate to. A concept that Berry found amazing.

“And you know, I realize how important these images and these role models are to her, because I know what I didn’t have,” she explained to Marie Claire. “For her, it’s almost as if it’s just completely normal. She grew up in the years that Barack Obama became President. So for her to have a black president, it’s like, ‘Well of course!’. She doesn’t know how monumental that was because that’s all she’s ever known. So it’s nice to see how evolution actually comes into play. Zendaya is totally normal for her and this isn’t a day to look up to, in her mind.”