For Halle Berry, she thought the transition from the bigscreen to television was going to be a breeze. “I thought, ‘Oh, I’m going to godo TV and be at home with my family,” she explained during the CBS Summer PressDay on May 18 in West Hollywood. “I didn’t see my family, and I never workedharder in my life! Hats off to everybody that does television because it is agrind.”
To top off her transition, the Extant star also had herinfant son Maceo she had to take care of on set. “I was nursing my baby,” sheshared. “My baby was just 3 months old when we started so I was doing drive bynursings every two hours. I would go into my trailer, nurse for 10 minutes andoff I was.”
In the series, which is back for a second season on July 1,Halle plays an astronaut who found herself pregnant with an alien child after returning from a 13 month solo mission in space. Already a mother to 7-year-old Nahla, she also spokeabout how the birth of her son affected her acting on the show, in which sheplays a mother to a boy named Ethan. The 48-year-old told reporters: “Well nowthat I have a son, I really do see the difference in relationship betweenhaving a little girl and having a boy and the special relationship that mothersand sons have.”
With this show, the Academy Award winning actress added anew title to her resume as she is not only the star but also a producer. Thoughbeing a producer vastly increased her workload, it also gave her a sense ofcreative satisfaction she couldn’t achieve as just an actress.
“It’s ok to just act and be an actor, I love that too.
That’s what I’ve done for 25 years,” she stated. “But I’m learning that it’snice to have some input in what you’re doing, and I’m just lucky that I havesome people that really take me seriously.”
That also includes having a say in her character’sappearance. Halle, who went from having short hair in the first season to now having long flowing locks, admitted, “I just got sick of theshort hair… The hair is not a mistake, it’s on purpose. It’s very much a partof the changes, the metamorphosis of her.”
And with the storyline being about aliens, the Scandale Paris lingerie owner concludedthat she does believe in extra-terrestrial life. “Well before this show, when Iwas a little girl I would look up into the sky and thought ‘my god there has tobe something else out there,’” she said. “And I do believe that there issomething else out there.”
As for what it is, she continued: “I don’t know,but I’m not so egotistical to think that we’re the only ones in this vastuniverse and this show makes us think about it, you know on a daily basis and Ihope that one day, I live long enough to find that answer. Maybe my kids will.”