Entertainment

Halle Berry Says Bond Spinoff Didn’t Happen Because Hollywood Wasn’t Ready For ‘A Black Female Action Star’

(Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)

Katie Jerkovich Entertainment Reporter
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Halley Berry said James Bond spinoff of her character Jinx from “Die Another Day” didn’t happen because Hollywood wasn’t ready for “a black female action star.”

“It was very disappointing,” the 54-year-old actress shared with Variety in a piece published Wednesday of the spinoff lobbied by “Bond” producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. But the actress shared that MGM wasn’t up for the $80 million budget. (RELATED: Halle Berry Admits She Really Screwed Up When She ‘Stupidly Said No’ And Turned Down ‘Speed’ Role)

“It was ahead of its time,” she added. “Nobody was ready to sink that kind of money into a Black female action star. They just weren’t sure of its value. That’s where we were then.”

Berry instead would go on to take the role of “Catwoman” in the 2004 standalone “Batman” character movie. (RELATED: Halle Berry Reveals How She Almost Died On Bond Set During Love Scene And How Pierce Brosnan Saved Her)

“People said to me, ‘You can’t do that,” Halle shared with the outlet. “You’ve just won the Oscar.'”

“Because I didn’t do Jinx, I thought, ‘This is a great chance for a woman of color to be a superhero,” she added. “Why wouldn’t I try this?'”

The “Kidnap” star continued, “But the story didn’t feel quite right. I remember having that argument: ‘Why can’t Catwoman save the world like Batman and Superman do? Why is she just saving women from a face cream that cracks their face off?’ But I was just the actor for hire. I wasn’t the director. I had very little say over that.”

At one point, Berry also shared that one of her “biggest heartbreaks” was that her winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for 2001’s Monster’s Ball as the first and only black woman to do so, didn’t open a door for “black actresses”

“It’s one of my biggest heartbreaks,” the superstar said. “The morning after, I thought, ‘Wow, I was chosen to open a door.’ And then, to have no one … I question, ‘Was that an important moment, or was it just an important moment for me?'”

“I wanted to believe it was so much bigger than me,” she added.  “It felt so much bigger than me, mainly because I knew others should have been there before me and they weren’t.”