He started in cinema 33 years ago, today he is an Oscar-winning star whom everyone knows. Did you know this young actor in his first role?

Halle Berry is a star, a real one. With her career-defining Shadow of Hate in 2002, becoming the first woman of color to win an Oscar for Best Actress, we can’t count her iconic films, from X-Men to Operation Swordfish, including John Wick’s Parabellum or Cloud Atlas.

But what was his first film role?

Chosen as Miss Universe in 1986, Halle Berry moved to New York three years later to become an actress. After a difficult period, she managed to land roles on television, most notably in Living Dolls, a spin-off of Madame estServe, which was canceled after 12 episodes. He then moved to Los Angeles and landed a small role in Jungle Fever (1991), directed by a certain Spike Lee, who had recently become famous for Do The Right Thing (1989).

She is up for the role of Vivian, known as “Vivy,” a drug addict who lives with “Gator,” played by Samuel L. Jackson, also a drug addict. Halle Berry is only in a few scenes, but already has the piercing gaze that has characterized many of her later roles. And this role, his first on the big screen, he did not choose by chance:

“He intended not to play the pretty girl…”The monk confided years later W magazine. “I was on a mission to try to eliminate that part of my character, and Spike allowed me to do that. Early on, I was getting roles that didn’t rely on my looks at all, which gave me some credibility in my industry.”

And because “jungle fever”?

After this first feature film, Halle Berry starred in the romantic comedy Strictly Business, then appeared in The Last Samaritan and Boomerang with Eddie Murphy, before starring in the miniseries Queen, in which she played a plantation owner’s daughter and slave.

The second half of the 90s is uneven, he plays in both Ultime Decision and The Flintstones. Some of his films didn’t make it in France, but when he was cast as Tornado in the X-Men in 2000, Hollywood snapped him up. In 2002, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Shadow of Hate and played the female lead, Jinx Johnson, in the James Bond film Die Another Day. His career has started and will not go back.