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Academy Award-winning actor Halle Berry was a beauty queen before she became one of Hollywood’s most sought-after stars. As a child, though, rather than finding escape in the arts, she found her solace in boxing, she tells Kelefa Sanneh, in an interview for CBS SUNDAY MORNING to be broadcast Sunday, Nov. 14 (9:00 AM, ET) on the CBS Television Network and streaming on Paramount+.

“Watching boxing on the weekends was my favorite pastime. I would imagine that these men like Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, and [Marvin] Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard....like they were my family,” Berry tells Sanneh.

“In my room, imagining these men were my fathers, or my husbands, but more my fathers,” Berry says. “And I just loved the spirit of boxing, I loved everything it represented.”

For Berry, that love of the sport turned into her directorial debut, “Bruised,” in which she stars as a disgraced MMA (mixed martial arts) fighter who must face her demons when the son she had given up as an infant reenters her life.

In real life, Berry has spent years training in kickboxing, Brazilian jiu jitsu and other martial arts. In the fighting world, Berry says, women fight to get their power back, and to heal.

“A lot of fighters talk about [how] they fight because they have to. With you, it seems like you’re doing this because you want to,” Sanneh says.

“Because I have to. I have to, too. I have to survive, I had to make a way for myself. I’ve had to support myself. I’ve had to create a career for myself, a way out of ‘no way,’” Berry says.

“‘No’ has bever been an answer for me. Getting hurt and stopping? Never what I do. Questioning? Never what I do. Taking chances? Always what I do, because I have to.”

She says she believes all women should know how to fight and understand its power, including her 13-year-old daughter.

“You know what it says to her? She can do anything she wants. And as a little girl, a little black girl, a woman – a girl of color, she needs to see these images. She needs to realize that her mom can do anything she sets her mind to doing. She needs to understand that what she will have to do, and I’m going to require this, is she will have to learn some form of martial arts,” Berry says. “I’m adamant about especially women learning how to protect themselves. I think that’s key.”

CBS SUNDAY MORNING is broadcast Sundays (9:00-10:30 AM, ET) on the CBS Television Network. Rand Morrison is the executive producer.

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