Halle Berry by Yana Yatsuk for Marie Claire US 'The Changemakes Issue' 2024

Halle Maria Berry (born Maria Halle Berry; August 14, 1966) is an American actress. Berry won the 2002 Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the romantic drama Monster's Ball (2001). As of 2018, she is the only black woman to have won the award.

Berry was one of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood during the 2000s and has been involved in the production of several of the films in which she performed. Berry is also a Revlon spokesmodel. Before becoming an actress, she started modeling and entered several beauty contests, finishing as the 1st runner-up in the Miss USA Pageant and coming in 6th place in the Miss World Pageant in 1986. Her breakthrough film role was in the romantic comedy Boomerang (1992), alongside Eddie Murphy, which led to roles in films such as the family comedy The Flintstones (1994), the political comedy-drama Bulworth (1998) and the television film Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999), for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Movie, among many other awards.

In addition to her Academy Award win, Berry garnered high-profile roles in the 2000s, such as Storm in X-Men (2000), the action crime thriller Swordfish (2001), and the spy film Die Another Day (2002), where she played Bond Girl Jinx. She then appeared in the X-Men sequels, X2 (2003) and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). In the 2010s, she appeared in movies such as the science fiction film Cloud Atlas (2012), the crime thriller The Call (2013) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). Berry was formerly married to baseball player David Justice, and singer-songwriter Eric Benét. She has two children: a daughter fathered by model Gabriel Aubry, and a son with actor Olivier Martinez.