NEW YORK -- Now she'll admit it. Halle Berry did threaten to quit the last two X-Men movies over the lack of screen time for her character, the weather-changing mutant Storm. But she hastens to add, she was bluffing.

"I threatened all that, but I didn't really mean it," Berry says with a sly grin on the release of X-Men: The Last Stand.

"I just wanted, not more screen time, but if I'm going to be on for five minutes, I say something meaningful for five minutes. Not just, 'C'mon kids, let's go fly that plane!'

"The fans told me for four years straight that they wanted more of her, and I took the heat for that demand."

In this case, the squeaky wheel did get the grease. Not only is Storm a stand-out character, but in an early scene of this ostensibly final instalment of the X-Men Trilogy, X-Men leader Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) takes Storm aside and tells her she's in line to inherit his post as head of Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters should anything happen to him.

Which of course it does. (Ooops... SPOILER ALERT!... Too late, here come the geek police to issue me a yellow card).

The beefed-up role extends to a couple of knock-down drag-out fights with another cast-member, the super-fast Latina mutant Callisto (Dania Ramirez).

"It wasn't that bad," Berry says of the knockdowns. "It's always tough when you're working with two actors who aren't stuntwomen. We lose track of our limbs and somebody gets popped. Nothing major, but we got little dings and dents."

She's less philosophical about the scenes where Storm amps up her weather powers by spinning in mid-air.

"I got motion sickness. There's nothing else you can do but laugh when you upchuck spinning and spray the crew. I'm done. Storm won't spin next time."

As she approaches 40 (she reaches that milestone Aug. 14), she's entitled to say no to certain things. And she does have the words "Oscar-winning actress" backing her up.

Of course, Oscar talk with Halle Berry tends to segue onto the subject of the so-called "Oscar curse." As with other winners, she admits her post-Academy oeuvre has been underwhelming (Gothika, Catwoman).

"The thing is I didn't want to suffer from the Oscar curse, so I didn't even try (to fight it). People say 'Why don't you do another Monster's Ball? (The film for which she won Best Actress). Well, it's 'cause I already did Monster's Ball. And I won the Oscar for it, and I may never win another in my life.

"It's not really my goal to stack up the Oscars. I want to carry on my career the way I did before Monster's Ball came along. It was instinctual, doing what felt right and felt good."

Like, um, Catwoman? It's not a sore point with her. In fact, she showed up to accept her own Worst Actress trophy for Catwoman at the Razzie Awards. "I had fun making Catwoman and I had fun making fun of it," she says.

"I saw it as one of those risks and chances," she says. "Catwoman, I thought, was a chance for a female heroine to helm her own movie and franchise. It missed. So you put on your big girl panties and deal with it."

As she approaches 40, she says she takes the business less seriously in general, and is pondering becoming a parent. "What I do know is the desire to have something in my life more meaningful than movies is becoming really, really real for me. I'm hoping something real manifests itself in my life. Whether I adopt or have a child of my own, I'm just hoping it comes. 'Cause that's what I'm feeling as a woman and a person."

So will she get married again? "Oh God, no! It won't come in the form of that," she says with a shriek and a laugh. "I've been divorced twice and been through hell. I no longer have to be someone's wife or feel validated through marriage.

"I hope I could have a child with a guy who could be the father and have a lovely committed relationship and be in my life -- without the piece of paper that says if we divorce I get that you get that and fight fight fight. I hope I can just walk away."

Of course, she's still smarting from her last marriage -- to actor/musician Eric Benet -- where she ended up paying alimony. "That's not good," she says of the payments, "especially when he cheats on you, like, 47 times."

"I once thought you couldn't have children if you weren't married. Now I think, y'know, it wouldn't be wrong. My mother was alone and raised me and that came out okay."

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