Interview of the week: Halle Berry

NEW YORK, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry says her steamy love scene with "Die Another Day" co-star Pierce Brosnan will remain forever etched in her memory -- although not for the reasons one might think.

"We were doing the love scene and I was trying to be way too sexy for my own good, obviously," she recently confessed to reporters, "and something got stuck in my throat and I wasn't getting any air in or out and Pierce said that he always knew that if someone wasn't coughing they were really choking. And he just right away jumped up in back of me, did something, and out the thing came."

The anecdote prompted one concerned reporter to ask the heart-felt question, "Did you guys have any clothes on at the time?"

"We did, but it was very bare, but we just forget that," explained the 34-year-old Cleveland native. "He jumped up. I jumped up and the lights came up, everybody came rushing in. And when it was over we looked around, 'Oh, lights down.' It was so not sexy. After that is was, OK let's just shoot this scene.'"

That said, Berry insists being a Bond girl is every bit as much fun as it looks.

"It was more fun and more work then I could have imagined," she said.

Although Berry won the Academy Award for best actress for playing the young wife of a man on Death Row in last year's "Monster's Ball," the petite beauty is best-known for kicking butt in action films such as "The Last Boy Scout," "X-Men" and "Swordfish." With a resume like that Berry should have been well-prepared for the rigors of being a Bond girl, right? Not even close, the actress says.

"For some reason I'd never done so much fighting and kicking," Berry said. "It was just on some days physically exhausting. Thinking I was prepared, but realizing after the fact that I hadn't really prepared enough, and wishing I had spent more time getting prepared. If I get to do it ever again I've learned that."

Comparing her "Die Another Day" character, Jinx, to Storm, the superheroine she plays in "X-Men" and the upcoming "X2," Berry said: "As Storm, I control the weather. She stands, rises her arms and her eyes go white. As Jinx, I had to fight with knifes, repel from ceilings, and run after moving airplanes and jump in and out of holes that I'm really not good at chin-ups and pull-ups and I realized that's the kind of thing one has to start to work on before beginning a movie like this."

Berry says she loves that the concept of an "action heroine" has developed during her career.

"I think it's great," she noted. "Someone asked me did I ever imagine I'd become an action heroine and I thought, 'No,' because growing up and in my 20s all the action heroes were men. It's only been in the last five or six years that women have emerged as being action heroes. I think that's just indicative of our society changing as women we're evolving, becoming more empowered. And I think soon we'll have some strong female action heroes that will be part of franchises just like James Bond."

Asked if she would go see "Die Another Day" even if she wasn't it, Berry said: "I've been going to Bond movies probably the last eight years. So yeah, I would go."

So what is it about Agent 007 that has captured moviegoers' attention for the last 40 years?

"I love the world, the fantasy, and I love the sexy guy," Berry offered. "And I know that Bond is going to foil the crime without a scratch on him, and there's going to be the great lines, and there's going to be the gadgets, and it's going to be a good ride. A good clean ride. There's violence, but you don't really see it. There's sex, but you don't really see it. There's glamour. You can take a teen with you. It's not one of these gory kinds of action movies. Being a woman, I think I always respond a little better to those kinds of action movies."

"Die Another Day," the 20th installment in the James Bond franchise, is in theatres now.