Halle Berry 'Broke Bones' Fighting UFC Champ Valentina Shevchenko
By Whitney Vasquez on April 23, 2020 at 7:34 AM EDT
Halle Berry is one tough cookie, just ask UFC champion Valentina Shevchenko. The 53-year-old actress revealed just how intense her training sessions with the fighter was for her role in the upcoming movie, "Bruised." Speaking to Jimmy Fallon from home, the bombshell proclaimed she did all her own fight scenes for the flick and she paid the price. Stepping into the ring with Shevchenko, who's a real-life badass Flyweight champ, Halle Berry revealed she "broke some bones" during their fight scenes.
In the movie, the Oscar winner plays an MMA fighter who is struggling to rebuild her life and rekindle her relationship with her estranged son. There's even a scene where her character and Shevchenko face off in the ring, so naturally, Halle Berry wasn't going to have a stunt double. “In this movie, I was fighting the real UFC flyweight champion, Valentina Shevchenko. And you know what? She had to throw some real kicks, and I had to really take them, and that really broke some bones," she told Fallon during their interview as part of his at-home "Tonight Show" series.
Calling the UFC fighter a "beast," Halle Berry said she has no regrets doing her own stunts for the action-packed movie. "I couldn’t have asked for a better teacher, a better scene mate, a better fight partner," she said of Shevchenko. "She just brought so much reality to it for me. At times, I felt like I was really fighting. Like, our referee that was in the movie is a real referee, and he says a couple times, ‘Man, I thought I was watching a real fight’ because she brought so much power and authenticity to our fight scenes.” Back in November, it was revealed that filming for the movie in New Jersey was put on pause due to an injury the actress had suffered.
"Halle got slightly injured in the fight,” executive producer Brian Pitt told NJ Advance Media, revealing, “She’s tired. She needed a break.” While insisting the injury was "nothing serious,” Pitt added. “Occasionally what’s going to happen is an actor might get a little injured, and we might adjust scheduling around them a little bit." Halle Berry has continuously impressed fans with her killer six-pack while training for the movie and now, everyone is about to see her be a killer in the ring. "Bruised" is currently in post-production and has not been given a release date just yet.
