The UFC isn’t short on celebrity fans, but Halle Berry just had to go the extra mile for her new movie Bruised. The actress told MMAFighting.com that getting into fighting shape for the film alongside UFC flyweight champ Valentina Shevchenko was “second only to childbirth” as the hardest thing she’s ever had to do.
“It is hands down the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my professional career. I think it’s second only to child birth. I had to push myself further than I’d ever pushed myself. All those disciplines are at play so I had to learn bits of all of it.
UFC Superfan Halle Berry Calls MMA Training “the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my professional career”
You can’t just all of a sudden look like you’re a real fighter. You really have to take the time and just put in the work and let your body sort of transform to look that way. I had to get some of these techniques in my body so that when shoot day came, I wasn’t still struggling with it. I had these things solidly in my body.”
Halle Berry initially checked out the script for Bruised out of love of the sport. The film was supposed to star Blake Lively, who passed on the role, opening the door for Berry to combine her passion for MMA with her love of acting.
“This film is so inextricably connected to my heart. It’s surrounding a sport that I love so much, especially the women of the sport that I love so much.
The story of a fighter is something that I’ve always connected to. I love a good fight movie starting with the original Rocky and Million Dollar Baby and The Wrestler and everyone in between.
It’s something that resonated very deeply with me and when I read the script, no it wasn’t written for someone like me but the producers gave me an opportunity to re-imagine it into a world that I did understand.
To characters that felt true to me. Characters that I felt like I knew, that I had intel on. So I set it in a world that I knew, around a sport that I loved. It didn’t get better than that for me.”
Halle Berry even applied her real-world MMA knowledge to casting once she agreed to direct the film, making her debut behind the camera for Bruised. She cast UFC flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko in the film as her foil, which the champ was happy to indulge.
Bruised was released to theaters November 17 and will be on Netflix from November 24.
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