SUBMITTED BY katystarlet

January 28, 2002 — Berry was enchanted by Monster's Ball script:
"When I read the script, I thought that this didn't feel like an American film because they didn't talk you to death, they didn't tell you what to feel. The script is full of empty spaces, just lingering moments which are a big part of the movie, and those were some of the hardest moments to create because you can't really act them."

"If you have words, really good actors can just fake it and convince you. But to convey feelings without using words, you really have to be experiencing something that can translate what the script calls for. That requires a lot more work for an actor, because you have to go to some places that are sometimes hard to get to, or that I don't want to go to, or are hard to get out of."

"This movie is full of scenes that deal with heavy, strong subject matter, from child abuse to racism to sex," Berry added. "And we dealt with them all in the same way, which was to be honest about it and do those uncomfortable things that sometimes feel too risky to do and say in film.

"We just opted, in every scene, to go ahead -- go ahead and say the N-word, go ahead and do the love scene, and do it for real the way people really do those things, and not make it pretty for Hollywood or whatever."