Halle Berry explains why she took the role in 2001's Die Another Day, including paying homage to Ursula Andress' original Bond Girl from Dr. No.
Halle Berry explains why she decided to take the role of a Bond Girl in the 2001 film Die Another Day. One of the common elements throughout the 25-film Bond franchise, which began with Dr. No starring Sean Connery in 1962, is that Bond is accompanied by a Bond Girl, usually depicted as a piece of eye candy who makes love to Bond and either betrays him, dies, or vanishes after the movie ends. These roles are an iconic part of the series and have drawn huge stars throughout the years including Diana Rigg, Jane Seymour, Grace Jones, and Famke Janssen, but they have also drawn criticism for the inherent misogyny of the way Bond Girls function within the film.
In Die Another Day, Halle Berry plays Jinx Johnson, whose introduction to the film sees her emerging from the ocean in an orange bikini, paying homage to Dr. No's introduction of Ursula Andress' character Honey Ryder. She plays an NSA agent who helps Bond on his mission. She does get captured at one point and needs to be rescued from drowning, but in the finale, she takes down Rosamund Pike's double agent and helps Bond escape a massive plane crash alive.
While speaking with Vanity Fair promoting her new film Bruised, which she directed and stars in, Halle Berry reminisced about her biggest films across the decades. When it came time to discuss Die Another Day, she explained why she took the role in the first place. Berry explains that producer Barbara Broccoli told her that she would get to be "a new kind of Bond Girl" who would be "more active… working alongside Bond in a new way." She was also excited about recreating Ursula Andress' iconic introduction and "pay[ing] homage to who she was and what this series was really all about." Read the full quote below:
I was really excited about Bond because that’s a franchise that’s iconic. It’s a part of film history, really, so to be a part of that franchise was very meaningful to me. And this version of a Bond woman was very different than any Bond woman I had seen before. When Barbara Broccoli came to me with the role, she explained that I would get to be a different kind - a new kind - of Bond girl. Which would allow me to be more active and sort of be… working alongside Bond in a new way, and that really excited me.
But also, it excited me too to reimagine that great Ursula Anders scene that was so iconic… in a new way and pay homage to who she was and what this series was really all about.
Salma Hayek, Saffron Burrows, and Sophie Ellis-Bextor were originally considered for the role of Jinx Johnson before it went to Halle Berry, who brought it to life in an inimitable fashion. The film came out a year after she won an Oscar for her performance in Monster's Ball, and cemented that her career would go in the direction of starring in huge blockbusters. Before Die Another Day, her only popcorn movie credit was appearing as Storm in 2000's X-Men.
The legacy of Die Another Day is a complicated one. It's the final Bond film before Daniel Craig stepped into the role and the franchise became more grounded and serious, and thus bears the weight of a lot of the problems of the franchise leading up to that point. However, Halle Berry's performance is not to be blamed, and she embodied the role honorably, paying homage to a tradition that would almost immediately start to look entirely different.
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Source: Vanity Fair
