PORTRAITS CLIFF WATTS

HALLE BERRY’S 30-plus-year career has seen her reach dizzying heights. Working her way up with parts in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever, Warren Beatty’s Bulworth and opposite Eddie Murphy in Boomerang, she became the first Black woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress, in 2002, for her performance in Monster’s Ball. After that, though, the most coveted roles weren’t always Berry’s for the taking as she navigated an industry not exactly designed with women of colour in mind.

But she isn’t easily knocked out, and with a string of physical turns under her belt — including X-Men’s Storm, Die Another Day’s Jinx, John Wick 3’s Sofia and Catwoman — for better and for worse, Berry is one of the few women in Hollywood to have cemented her action-star status.

This has all, it seems, been leading to Bruised. Here, she plays Jackie Justice, a disgraced mixed martial artist determined to make her Ultimate Fighting comeback for the sake of her estranged six-year-old son. Age, income, plus years of anxiety and trauma are working against Jackie. And yet, with the help of British trainer Bobbi (Sheila Atim), she’s putting everything into becoming a contender once more, just as Berry put in the gruelling work to authentically embody this fighter in front of the camera.

As the first-time filmmaker tells us, she’s fighting for more than just her career. She’s fighting for what she believes in: herself.

How bruised did you get making Bruised?

I always get some kind of injury because I love doing my own stunts. In this one I broke two ribs, one of my fingers got pulled out of its socket — my trainer had to literally put it back in —I broke two toes and I had a trillion bruises.

Wow, that is intense. How did training for it compare to your past action-heavy roles?

I had to learn different martial-art disciplines. I knew a little bit of capoeira from Catwoman and I had some John Wick 3 fighting under my belt. I actually started training on Bruised when I was training for John Wick, but I had to start at ground zero. I learnt jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, wrestling, boxing, kickboxing, Taekwondo. I trained in it at various degrees of intensity for almost two years.