A disgraced fighter gets a last shot at redemption in Director Halle Berry’s drama, Bruised.
Berry’s film tells the story of mixed martial arts contestant Jackie Justice, who has failed at the one thing she's ever been good at – fighting. When the young son she abandoned years ago returns to her doorstep, Jackie has to find the courage to conquer her own demons both inside and outside the cage.
On December 5, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Berry discussed the making of Bruised during a Q&A moderated by Director David E. Talbert (Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey).
During the conversation, Berry discussed the challenges of keeping the production going even though she suffered broken ribs two days into the shoot.
“Stopping didn't even cross my mind. On the movie I'd done before this, John Wick, I'd broken three ribs and that production got shut down but that was a big huge production and it could absorb a shutdown. This was a little indie that I had to cobble the money together for and I knew that if I told them I had broken ribs the insurance would shut me down. I knew I would never get Valentina Shevchenko back. She was and still is the current UFC flyweight champion and to take six weeks out of her reigning champion status was already a big thing. I knew I'd never get her back in this this dream and these two years that I spent training would be for nothing. I had been training for so long that I had embodied the fighting spirit and fighters never stop. You hear fighters talk about having dislocated shoulders, they break bones, they pull ligaments all kinds of things and they keep going. The adrenaline takes over and they keep going and that's what happened for me. Stopping just wasn't an option.”
Bruised is Berry’s directorial debut. She joined the DGA in 2019.
You can listen to Berry's Q&A by clicking the podcast episode embedded below. You can find more DGA podcast episodes here.