HOLLYWOOD -- Halle Berry believes in the resilience of the human body and the human spirit.

This has been a disconcerting year for the Oscar-winning actress who had her arm broken in May and her heart in September.

Berry was filming a physically and emotionally demanding scene in Montreal for her new thriller Gothika when she snapped a bone in her forearm.

In Gothika, which opens Friday, she plays a psychiatrist with amnesia who finds herself in a hospital for the criminally insane accused of butchering her husband.

Robert Downey Jr., who plays a fellow psychiatrist, was helping to subdue Berry in a scene where her character was thrashing at staff members trying to administer sedatives.

PAIN WAS REAL

"I was screaming and yelling for the scene when I heard the snap and felt the pain. Then I was screaming and yelling for real," says Berry, who insists she does not blame Downey who was restraining that arm.

"I didn't think then and don't think now he'd do something like that on purpose. We were struggling with each other and it was just one wrong turn on both our parts."

Berry says she's not pussyfooting around the Vancouver set of Catwoman, where she plays the leather-clad avenger.

"I'm going all out for the stunts. People keep reminding me that I just broke my arm earlier this year and I answer 'So what?' I love action stuff. It's great fun. It's really exhilarating."

In September, Berry announced that she and singer Eric Benet have officially separated after nearly three years of marriage.

"Eric and I have had marital problems for some time now. We tried to work things out, but feel we need time apart to re-evaluate our relationship," says Berry, whose first marriage to Cleveland outfielder David Justice ended in divorce in 1996.

"I believe in love, romance and marriage. I always have and still do. I'm looking upon this as an important learning experience.

"Life is a series of learning experiences, just as it is a series of ups and downs. I've certainly had my share of both and I'm happy to say I'm doing well."

She says her mother, who raised Berry and her sister, taught her daughters "to be strong as nails.

"That's what she told us when we were growing up and that's what she tells me today."

Berry says it's easy for her to put her marital problems in perspective.

"Unless you are starving and cannot get food, or have medical problems for which there is no help, you don't really have a serious problem. You have a life lesson and I'm going through an important life lesson at the moment."

Her touchstone during this difficult time is Benet's 12-year-old daughter India, whom Berry officially adopted last year.

"Right now I'm very much about being a mom. She is a wonderful girl, who needs me right now. She's at that age where she has a hundred questions only a mother can answer.

"She's noticing boys. Boys are noticing her. Men are noticing her. That's very scary to me, so she has become the most important relationship in my life right now.

"I know romance will come back into my life in the future. I'm in no rush now. I have my career. I have my daughter."

In Gothika, Berry's psychiatrist encounters a ghost that may be malevolent.

The actress had her own encounter with such an entity when she was filming her TV movie Introducing Dorothy Dandridge in 1999.

"When I was preparing for the film, I borrowed a dress that belonged to Dorothy for inspiration. I didn't wear it or anything. It was in a protective plastic bag in my den."

One night, Berry and a friend were having tea in her living room when they heard rustling noises coming from the den. The women went to the room to check on the noises.

"The plastic on the dress was rattling. No kidding. It was actually rattling. (My friend) and I both hauled our butts out of there and fast."

Berry is convinced it was the spirit of the troubled actress who died at age 42 in 1965 of a drug overdose.

"That was just the first of several incidents that happened while I had the dress. My housekeeper and I would hear noises in my bedroom and find that my vanity chair had moved and the refrigerator door would fling open by itself.

"It was really weird and scary."

Berry had the opportunity to buy the dress but refused.

COULDN'T TAKE THE HAUNTING

"As much as I loved the dress, I just couldn't put up with the haunting, so I returned it and everything stopped as soon as it was out of the house."

Berry is currently on the cover of the men's magazine FHM, whose readers voted her the sexiest woman in the world.

Her interview is accompanied by a provocative photo layout.

"I'm not just comfortable with it, I like it.

"I'm finally OK with my body and my sexuality," says Berry, whose Oscar win for Monster's Ball included several nude scenes.

"There was a time when I felt that in order to be taken seriously as an actress I couldn't really express that part of my personality.

"But that is an important part of who I am."

Berry says her decision to bare her breasts for Swordfish was the important turning point.

"That was a very difficult decision, but ever since I did that scene in Swordfish, I have been a lot more comfortable with my sexuality.

"I can still do sexy photo shoots, be sexual on screen and have an Oscar at home. That makes me feel really good about myself."


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