If you're going to cast an A-lister, get ready for A-list demands.
For the first time in nearly a decade, Halle Berry has decided to put her big screen endeavors on hold and returned to television. "I was being offered parts that I felt like I had done before," Berry tells Entertainment Weekly in their latest issue, on newsstands tomorrow, of her decision to make the transition. "They weren't exciting enough for me to leave my family for four months."
The award-winning star added, "I realized some of the best writing especially for women, was on television."
So, she decided to give the small screen another go, starring in the new CBS sci-fi space drama Extant. However, it is Halle-freakin'-Berry, so you bet your booty her paycheck for the new series is up there, and she had her own list of demands while shooting.
According to the article, Berry is "earning north of $100,000 an episode and a coexecutive producing credit." The 47-year-old mother of two also "requested a closed set (on which President Obama's daughter Malia was secretly a production assistant) and received an on-set bodyguard."
Extant revolves around an astronaut (Berry) who returns home to her family inexplicably pregnant after a year in outer space.
"The minute I started to read it, I couldn't put it down," Berry told the mag. "I thought, ‘Wow. This is different.' It's innovative. Molly is a strong female character, which I really love to play. Molly is a complicated woman with a complicated family. Who is a woman who goes away to space for a year and leaves her husband, first of all? Who is a woman who comes back pregnant and tries to handle it somehow on her own? That just felt like a complication that I wanted to be a part of."
The 13-episode series, also starring Goran Visnjic and Camryn Manheim, premieres July 9 on CBS.