HOLLYWOOD -- Die Another Day is not just the name of Halle Berry's new Bond movie.

It's the philosophy she lives by.

In 1996, after her three-year marriage to major league baseball player David Justice collapsed, Berry contemplated suicide.

She took her two dogs into her car in the couple's garage and turned on the ignition. The fumes had begun to fill the garage when she opened the doors and rushed outside with her pets.

"I'm not proud of that moment in my life, but honestly, I was ready just to give up. The divorce was really hard on me," says Berry, whose Oscar-winning performance in Monster's Ball made her the first African American to win a best actress statue.

"My performance in Monster's Ball comes from all those real-life experiences that have taken me to dark, dark, heavy places. So, I'm grateful for them.

"I know that I will face many more valleys. I'll have to struggle my way out again. When I'm in those dark valleys, suicide won't be an option because I know that I can survive.

"And I know that's it's all for my good because it just makes my well deeper and I can use the experiences to make my life and my work better."

RUMOUR MILL

Berry has been dealing with rumours that her 21-month-old marriage to musician Eric Benet was on the rocks.

"I've learned you have to work hard at relationships. I'm also finding out that my life is food for (gossip) fodder, all the truths and untruths about it.

"... I've had to develop a tough skin and I'm really learning how to just sit within myself and not let it all really shake and rattle me as it once did."

It also helps that her highs this year have far outweighed the lows.

Her Oscar win for Monster's Ball in March was greeted with a standing ovation from her peers and was followed by accolades from around the world.

"I can tell you exactly how I felt the minute before my name was called but the minute after is a blur."

She recalls when Russell Crowe was listing the nominees for best actress she was biting her lip and thinking "dear God, when they don't say my name, just please let me be gracious. Don't let it show on my face that I feel disappointed."

The next thing she remembers was standing with Crowe and him telling her: " 'Just breathe, mate. Just breathe. You've got to just breathe.' Then I looked out at the audience and I saw everyone standing and that was the first time that I realized I had won.

"I didn't know how I'd gotten onto that stage. It was as if I had been teleported."

Berry has a few words for those naysayers who feel it is unfortunate she is following her Oscar win by playing a Bond girl.

"Die Another Day is the perfect movie for me to be doing at this moment.

"Oscar night sort of presented me to the world, but so many people around the world didn't have a clue who I was because of what my body of work has been.

"What better film for me to be in now than a James Bond movie that goes around the world."

CLOSE CALLS ON BOND

Urban legend has it that Berry almost died twice filming Die Another Day.

The first incident was on a set in Spain.

Brosnan was shooting at a helicopter being flown by Rick Yune, who plays one of the film's villains.

The charges in the walls of a castle to simulate bullets hitting them shot dust into the wind stirred by the helicopter blades and Berry got an eyeful of dust.

Producer Barbara Broccoli, exercising caution, rushed her to a doctor to make sure there was no damage to her cornea.

Broccoli recalls Berry had her eye washed out and was given a clean bill of health but "the next thing we knew we were on CNN and made newspaper headlines around the world.

"Halle's mother called in panic because she heard the reports."

Berry's sex scenes proved breathtaking.

"We were naked and I was peeling a fig to feed to us. I took a bite and he said something that made me laugh and the fig got lodged in my throat and I couldn't breathe."

A naked Brosnan administered the Heimlich maneuver dislodging the fig.

"Seeing Pierce naked could have been the reason I choked because, as you know, no Bond has ever been this naked in any of the Bond movies."


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