Halle Berry

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Halle Berry is eerily quiet. She is sitting in her trailer waiting to be called to shoot a scene for her forthcoming film, Bullworth, a political comedy in which Halle co-stars opposite Warren Beatty as a rapper who comes to play a pivotal role in the life of U.S. senator. Her eyes are closed, and she is completely still; she has said nothing since being asked how she is dealing with the sudden and surprising break-up last year of her marriage to Atlanta Braves outfielder David Justice. She seems completely absorbed, transported. When she finally answers, her voice is so soft, so hushed, you can barely hear her.

"You know," she says, "when David and I broke up..." She stops abruptly and looks away. In the silence that follows, she is clearly trying to make a difficult decision -- whether she is going to tell you something as painful as it is personal. Minutes pass. When the silence grows too uncomfortable, she tries to explain it. That is when you realize, amazingly, her hesitation is as much about her concern for the man who is suing her for divorce as it is for herself.

"I don't want this to be about bashing David," she implores. "He's not a bad person; I'm not a bad person. What I want people to understand is this is about bad choices."

For Halle, the breakup of her marriage is also about putting those choices behind her, or at least learning how to live with them and form them with dignity and grace. But more than anything, as the agony of the last year has taught her, what the breakup of her marriage is really about is learning how to lose a lover without losing herself

"After David asked me for a divorce," she confides, things got very bad for me. I did not want my marriage to end. When David asked me to leave, I felt like my world was coming apart. I said, `What do you mean leave?' I was begging and pleading with him [to reconsider] because I always thought my marriage would be for life. I said, `Can't we get some counseling?' …