Halle Berry Sustained Some Serious Injuries Training For John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum
Whenever someone signs on to be in an action movie, they are doing that with the knowledge that there is a chance they might get hurt. The same goes for professional athletes. Even if the risk is small and every precaution is taken, there is still that creeping thought that you could pull, break, or rupture something. This is why stunt performers are so vital, putting their bodies on the line. They are there to both make the actors look good and to mitigate the risk of injury to those actors as well.
When you sign on to be in a "John Wick" movie though, that responsibility required for taking care of and preparing your body for the action set pieces increases exponentially. More than almost every single action film series going right now in Hollywood, the "John Wick" films demand the most out of their actors, requiring them to perform all sorts of challenging fight choreography and stunts. This is what sets them apart from the riff-raff of modern action flicks.
One actor who wanted to step up to meet that challenge was Academy Award winner Halle Berry, who plays a key supporting role in "John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum." Her action set piece is tremendous, and not only does it involve much of the fighting and gun-fu that we know the series likes to implement, but the sequence also involves the use of dogs, which always presents a unique challenge. As Berry was preparing for the role, she ended up having to put her body on the line and ended up sustaining a major injury, one that she believed might take her out of the picture.
Broken ribs are no joke
We've all heard the stories about people getting hurt in action films, like Tom Cruise breaking his ankle as he leaped across the tops of two buildings in "Mission: Impossible – Fallout." Part of the lore of those kinds of mishaps is that they often get left in the movie as a monument to the pain the person suffered.
In the case of Halle Berry, her injury occurred before the cameras even started rolling. Speaking with Extra around the film's release, she revealed that she "broke three ribs when [she] was rehearsing for 'John Wick.'" Broken ribs are injuries I hope to never sustain in my own life, as the thought of not having any real way to treat it but waiting through the pain seems like an absolute nightmare.
Berry took the injury in stride, though. "It's like a badge of honor for me, we don't know how it happened ... I worked for a little while with broken ribs until I could no longer do it," she added. Once she realized the extent of her injury, she feared she would have to be replaced, but Berry credits director Chad Stahelski for waiting things out until she was able to get back on the proverbial horse and do the work.
In Hollywood, where time is money, that is truly a blessing. But if you're going to have the determination and grit to be in a "John Wick" film alongside action film legend Keanu Reeves, who Berry "didn't want to disappoint," all I can do is applaud your work. And Halle Berry more than holds her own in "John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum," contributing to what I believe to be the best film of the series. I just wish they brought her back for "Chapter 4."