She's the highest-paid black actress in Hollywood history, who also has an Oscar and a host of other prestigious awards under her belt. As Halle Berry makes her debut as a superheroine in Catwoman, which opens nationwide on August 13, we talk to her about everything from coping with the pressure on women to look beautiful and what it's like to behave like a cat!

Question: Your Catwoman character had a great signature walk - did you cultivate that or adopt it when you put your costume on? Tell us how you prepared for the role.

Halle Berry: I think that sequence took about nine days to shoot and we worked a lot with our doubles because I really didn't want to take Sharon's teeth out!

Benjamin Bratt answers: No injuries to report. That scene is really just symbolic of foreplay. It has to be choreographed like a dance and that requires rehearsal and rehearsing with Halle will always be enjoyable.

Halle Berry: I'd played a little bit of basketball but I certainly honed by skills in preparation for this. Ben and I both had to really work at our basketball.

There are times in my life where I'm very much related to who that Patience character was, even when I don't quite fit in and feel sure of myself.

Then there are times when I've held my ground and stood up for what I've believed in and overcome great adversities. I'm a little bit of both of those people.

Question: How accurate do feel the film's depiction of the cosmetic industry is - is it that mercinary and ruthless or is that an exaggeration?

It's really not meant to be a slam on a cosmetics company, it's meant to really depict what can happen to human beings within any company. It was just about corruption that goes on behind a company. They chose to use a cosmetic cream because one of the things about the movie was to blow open the fact that as women start to age in life we've been given this great burden of feeling like we have to search out the fountain of youth or else we're not accepted anymore, or loved or appreciated.

Halle Berry: I think we have become obsessed with beauty and personally I'm really saddened by the way women mutilate their faces today in search of that.

There is this plastic, copycat look evolving and that's frightening to me. ... It's really insane and I feel sad that's what society is doing to women. I think the movie addressed that.

Halle Berry: Beauty? Let me tell you something - being thought of as a beautiful woman has spared me nothing in life. No heartache, no trouble. Love has been difficult. Beauty is essentially meaningless and it is always transitory.

Halle Berry: No, the cats were great. They were like children and upstaged everybody and got all the attention on the days we shoot. I'm an animal lover.

Halle Berry: Yes, mine has and was a part of the entire process ... She saw a strong and powerful woman in one of these films so she was really happy and inspired and absolutely loved the movie.

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