Halle Berry is opening up about the scary moment she almost died on the set of 2002’s Die Another Day. Appearing on Jimmy Fallon’s at-home edition of The Tonight Show Tuesday, the Academy Award winning actress revealed that her co-star Pierce Brosnan saved her after she began to choke during a scene.
“I was doing a scene with Pierce Brosnan in Die Another Day, and I was supposed to be all sexy and, like, trying to seduce him with a fig, and then I end up choking on it. He had to get up and do the Heimlich,” she recounted. “So not sexy, so not sexy…You should’ve seen it. James Bond knows how to Heimlich. He was there for me, and he will always be one of my favorite people in the whole world.”
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Of course, the near-death experience wasn’t the only scary moment for Berry. The actress had to be taken to the hospital after she suffered an eye injury during an action sequence that was filmed in Cadiz, Spain. At the time, Entertainment Weekly reported that Brosnan’s James Bond was shooting down a helicopter in the sequence, and a fragment from a smoke grenade lodged in her left eye. She was transported to a local hospital where doctors were able to remove the shrapnel. Although she suffered an inflamed cornea, she did not suffer any permanent damage and she was soon back to work.
More recently, Berry suffered an injury during filming of her upcoming film, Bruised. The incident occurred in December, with NJ Advance Media reporting that the Oscar winner got hurt while she was filming a scene for the film, which chronicles the journey of an MMA fighter who is rebuilding their life and reconnecting with her young son.
Executive producer Brian Pitt told the outlet that the actress “got slightly injured in the fight,” adding that “she”s tired” and “she needed a break.” Although Pitt at the time would not elaborate on the extent of Berry’s injury, he said that it was “nothing serious.” He added that “occasionally what’s going to happen is an actor might get a little injured, and we might adjust scheduling around them a little bit.”
Prior to that, Berry confirmed to Extra in early 2019 that she had broken three of her ribs while she was rehearsing for John Wick 3, stating, “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.” While still dealing with the broken ribs, Berry was preparing to work on Bruised.
