"She kicked me and broke two ribs" - When Halle Berry saved 'Bruised' from shutting down after Valentina Shevchenko session
Bruised, starring Halle Berry and former UFC flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko is one of the biggest MMA films to come out in recent times.
The 2020 release served as Berry's directorial debut, and is available to stream on Netflix. The film follows the career of an MMA fighter who falls from grace, and climbs her way back to the top after she is re-united with the son she previously abandoned.
Check out the trailer for 'Bruised' here:
A big part of the film's promotion included footage and content of Halle Berry training MMA. That, however, almost proved to be a double-edged sword. In an interview on the Graham Norton Show, Berry revealed that in the course of her training, she suffered injuries at the hands of Valentina Shevchenko, who plays her opponent in the film.
Berry said:
"I had to fight her (Shevchenko) I had to train, I trained for two and a half years and upped my game to really be prepared for the moment...On day 2 of a 5 day fight sequence, we shot that at the beginning, we had trained, we were all ready, we knew the choreo. On day 2, she kicked me and broke two of my ribs."
Berry revealed that she hid the injury caused by Valentina Shevchenko from the producers
Host Norton proceeded to ask Berry if the kick from Valentina Shevchenko may have stopped production, to which she replied:
"No, it threatened to, I knew if I told anyone, if I told insurance that I broke two ribs, they would have shut me down. I knew that I might never get back to this movie again. I put too much into it, I worked too hard, I'd come too far, I'd fought too hard. So, a funny thing happened. I'd been training to be a fighter for two years, I think the fighter side of my training took over and as fighters, if you're in the ring and you get injured, you can't stop...you have to keep going. So, I made the decision to not tell anyobdy and once we finished the fight, I told everybody, oh s**t I think I broke something, I have to go to the hospital."
Check out the interview here: