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PRESS NOTES FOR MONSTER'S BALL

Hank Grotowski Billy Bob Thornton
Leticia Musgrove Halle Berry
Buck Grotowski Peter Boyle
Sonny Grotowski Heath Ledger
Lawrence Musgrove Sean Combs
Ryrus Cooper Mos Def
Tyrell Musgrove Coronji Calhoun
 

Directed by Marc Forster
Written by Milo Addica, Will Rokos
Producer Lee Daniels
Co-Producer Eric Kopeloff
Executive Producers Mark Urman, Miachel Burns, Michael Paseornek
Directory of Photography Roberto Schaefer
Production Designer Monroe Kelly
Editor Matt Chesse
Art Director Leonard Spears
Casting Kerry Barden
Costume Designer Frank Fleming
 
 
 

MONSTER’S BALL
“Monster’s Ball” is the rare film about intersecting lives in which the characters transform one another in such a profound way that, while the fireworks may seem to go off just below the surface, their explosions echo in our hearts and minds long after the last reel.
Perhaps this is because the film’s director, Marc Forster, has with “Monster’s Ball” taken an unflinching, clear-eyed approach to the heavy legacies of family and race, as well as to the redemptive yet ethereal power of love.  The truths Forster confronts in “Monster’s Ball” can be at once brutal and sublime, shocking and healing.

The first half of the film introduces us to a family of men whose three generations of work has rooted them squarely in the foundation of the contemporary Southern social landscape.  They are officers for the Department of Corrections, men who put into action the ultimate will of the state. Working with prisoners in a rural Georgia prison, their emotions are as tightly locked down as the cells on Death Row as they ready the condemned for execution.  Billy Bob Thornton plays Hank Grotowski, who heads the death team; his aging father Buck (Peter Boyle) is home-bound but his racism is as virulent as ever.  However, Hank’s son Sonny (Heath Ledger), whose work on the death team has just begun, may be immune to the hate that seems to have been passed from father to son.

As Hank and Sonny and the rest of the death team prepare for the execution of Lawrence Musgrove (Sean Combs), we learn that while Hank shows no outward sympathy for the condemned man, he does have a great reverence for the process of his last hours.  When Sonny loses control and breaks away from Musgrove’s “last walk,” the consequences are severe.  Hank spews his rage in a confrontation with Sonny in the prison bathroom, his violence barely contained by other members of the team.  But the next morning at the Grotowski home Hank’s anger has not been sated.  It boils over once again and Sonny pulls a gun on his father in self-defense.  When Hanks tells his only child “I’ve always hated you,” Sonny turns the gun on himself.

Buck and Hank bury Sonny in the back yard, next to the grave of Buck’s wife, also a suicide, and Hank’s wife.  Hank can’t get the casket in the ground fast enough.  But Hank doesn’t return to his life as it was.  He padlocks Sonny’s room, burns his uniform and quits his job at the prison.

When Lawrence Musgrove is executed, he leaves behind a wife, Leticia (Halle Berry) and a son, Tyrell (Coronji Calhoun).  Before he is put to death we are given a glimpse of this family’s last visit.  Leticia has been visiting her husband on death row for eleven years, and she is tired.   Tyrell has inherited his father’s talent as a sketch artist.  That night, waiting for Musgrove’s last phone call, Leticia wails on her obese son when she discovers his secret stash of chocolate bars.  She sees the best of her husband in their son, and the worst.  Musgrove never calls.

Suddenly in need of work, Leticia gets a job waiting on the graveyard shift at a diner, where Hank often stops in for coffee and chocolate ice cream.  Late one night, during a torrential rainstorm, Hank comes to Leticia’s rescue when he finds her and her son in desperate need of help at the side of the road.

 “Why did you help me?” she asks Hank after he gives her a ride home from the diner some time later.  She asks him inside her house and after some drinks Leticia exposes her grief and great need, and they make ferocious love.  The next morning, when Hank sees a picture of Lawrence Musgrove, a man he helped put to death, he becomes violently ill.  But he does not tell Leticia the reason.

As their relationship develops, Hank realizes that he needs to help Leticia as much as she needs his help.  He gives her Sonny’s car, and when he buys a gas station as a new way to earn a living, he names it for her.  But when Leticia tries to bring Hank a present, she gets into an ugly confrontation with Buck that sears her with the family’s indelible legacy of hate.

Hank makes the decision to ship his father to a nursing home.  “You must love him very much,” the woman at the home says as Hank admits his father.  “No,” he replies, “I don't.  But he’s my father, so there you go.”

When Leticia is evicted from her home, Hank is once again there to rescue her.  He has given the inside of his house a fresh coat of paint.   Once there, he offers Leticia a chance to lock away the belongings from her past life in the padlocked attic room once occupied by Sonny.  When Leticia is alone in that room she discovers two sketches made by her late husband the night that he was put to death: one sketch is of Sonny, one is of Hank.  She is horrified by her discovery.

But when Hank returns a few minutes later, he tells Leticia that she looks beautiful. He thinks that they will be OK.  Leticia is silent, but she smiles.  Maybe they will be OK.  But can these two people, drawn together by need, passion, circumstance and violence, wrestle their future from the hungry grasp of the past?
 
 

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
 

Reading “Monster’s Ball” for the first time I had the immediate impression that I was dealing with a story of interrupted silences – that this would be a film that did not rely on a lot of exposition or dialog to establish its characters.  The silences I am talking about come from the characters’ interior life and personal conflicts; the drama would arise from the times when their own perception of their stance in the world is exposed.   Leticia knows that she is trapped in a prison as much as her husband is, and her violence towards her child arises from self-hatred that comes when she recognizes that she cannot change their situation.  Hank, too, sees himself trapped in the shadow of his father and a legacy of hate – but it is not until the death of his son exposes the legacy that he can change his perspective, that he can change his destiny.

I approached the material – which was heavy on incidents but not on dialog – by focusing on how characters reacted to what was going on around them. This means that I encouraged the actors to present their characters in all their desperate humanity, which I hoped would make labels like “sympathetic” or “unsympathetic” seem entirely beside the point.  Most of the characters in “Monster’s Ball” have those vulnerable, vicious, misunderstood and unforgiving traits that all flower from the same root, the absolute need to be loved.  Hank and Leticia must experience great loss in order to realize this.  For Hank, it is not a sudden moment of understanding: he recognizes his need to be loved when he ultimately recognizes his recurring need to care for someone after years of hard work to not care for people, placing more importance on ritual.  For Leticia, the moment she recognizes her need to be loved comes instantaneously, when Hank exposes his emotions late at night, in a parked car.  Hank is by nature reticent, prone to internalize everything; Leticia, after years straining to hold everything together, is easily moved to emotional outburst.

My hope with “Monster’s Ball” was to make a film that lead with emotions rather than action;
I was looking for uncompromising emotional honesty from my actors in hopes that we could tell a story of loss and redemption with the same resonance achieved by some of the great films of the 70s.  Yet I was also after a contemporary aesthetic: to render a sense of isolation in a world crowded with complexity, full of characters struggling to transcend the compromises of their condition.
 
 
 

About the Production

Since the script was completed in early 1995, “Monster’s Ball” has been a magnet for top Hollywood actors and filmmakers.  The project almost “happened” at one studio or another, with this star and that director, with one producer or another, maybe half a dozen times before the film was finally financed by Lions Gate Films in the spring of 2001.

“The project was evergreen,” observes producer Lee Daniels.  “Like many people I became obsessed with the script like no other.  It is a rare script that depicts the immediacy of life with raw, rugged and layered characters, and actors live for that.”

One of those actors is Halle Berry.  “I was attracted to ‘Monster’s Ball’ the first minute I read the script,” she says.  “It’s a wonderful part.  The characters all have lots of levels, and they present a side of human nature that has always fascinated me.”

Berry joined the cast of “Monster’s Ball” relatively late in the game, and fought hard to land the part.  A star of many mainstream blockbusters who recently was honored with numerous awards and critical praise for her portrayal of screen legend Dorothy Dandridge in an HBO movie of the same name, Berry epitomizes Hollywood glamour.  But there was something about the role of Leticia that drove Berry to pursue it relentlessly and, like the other cast members, agree to work for a fraction of her normal salary.

“I felt a deep connection to Leticia’s spirit and her heart,” says Berry.  “I understand what it’s like to struggle and be behind the eight ball and want to achieve and be successful and make something good out of your life.  And I totally understand being a black woman, especially in the industry that I’ve chosen to be in.  I can understand the struggle of wanting something so badly but not really knowing how to get where you’re trying to go, and she’s filled with a lot of pain, as I am.  For me, the role was being able to tap into that pain in order to bring the character to life.

 “In fact, every part in the movie, no matter how big or how small, is wonderful,” Berry says.

These plum roles that so many actors pursued with the same passion as Berry were, it turns out, written by two actors who were living in Los Angeles and trying to get work.  Will Rokos and Milo Addica partnered to write “Monster’s Ball” with the idea that they could act in the film.  They holed up in a Santa Monica apartment and wrote quickly, initially envisioning a micro-budget production in which they would star.  They shared experience growing up in violent households, and decided that their film would be about how the cycle of violence can be broken.

But the script became more than a personal project for Rokos and Addica when Hollywood took notice.  Top actors such as Robert DeNiro and Tommy Lee Jones and such directors as Sean Penn and Oliver Stone were at various times over the last few years attached to the film, but with these stars came the need for large salaries.  And large salaries made budgets balloon.  And ballooning budgets made executives uneasy, causing them to demands that Rokos and Addica soften certain elements of the screenplay.  These were demands that the writers were unwilling to meet, and as a result “Monster’s Ball” shifted from one home to the next, stewing in its own unique circle of development purgatory.
Ultimately, “Monster’s Ball” would be directed by American independent director and Swiss native Marc Forster, a graduate of NYU Film School whose previous feature, “Everything Put Together,” had its world premiere at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. “Monsters Ball” was photographed in the late spring and summer of 2001 in and around New Orleans and at the notorious Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola (also know as “The Farm”).  The film is produced by Lee Daniels, with Michael Burns, Michael Paseornek and Mark Urman serving as executive producers.

 “I begged Milo and Will to give me three months to put the movie together,” says producer Daniels.  A previous producer’s option had just expired, and Daniels, who manages the career of Wes Bentley, felt the role of Sonny would be perfect for his client.  Bentley quickly became attached.

Daniels went looking for a director, and along with Rokos and Addica, screened Forster’s Sundance film “Everything Put Together” in New York in August of 2000.

Says Daniels, “When I saw ‘Everything Put Together’ I thought, ‘this guy understands tough, personal material and knows how to work with actors.’  The movie totally got under my skin.”

“Everything Put Together” stars Radha Mitchell and Justin Lewis as a young, well-off, loving, suburban couple eagerly awaiting the birth of their first child. Angie's friends are also pregnant and together their worlds revolve around babies, husbands and the rituals of family life. When an unexpected tragedy befalls Angie and Russ, the community that they were once integrally involved in begins to disappear. Forster creates a terrifying yet perfectly empathetic portrait of an alienated woman adrift in a hostile, suffocating suburban environment.
Says Forster, “I am very proud of ‘Everything Put Together.’  The movie, and the fact that it got into Sundance where everyone saw it, made my career. It was an unusually strong year at Sundance, with movies like ‘Girlfight’ and ‘Chuck & Buck’ and ‘You Can Count on Me,’ and ‘Everything Put Together’ went a little bit under the radar.  Frankly, the film’s subject matter was simply to dark.”  “Everything Put Together” would ultimately earn Forster the Movado “Someone to Watch” award at the 2001 IFP Spirit Awards.

In the meantime, executive producer Mark Urman, who at the time was co-president of Lions Gate, had seen Forster’s earlier work at Sundance.  Forster and Urman began talking about a separate project when he heard about “Monster’s Ball.”  He asked to see the script and, he says, “I flipped for it.  I knew that this was the kind of film that would be tough to get made, but needed to get made.”

After going through years of coming thisclose, writers Addica and Rokos at this point retained all rights to the project as well as a thoroughly skeptical attitude. The key to getting the rights to their script, explains Urman, “was that we never asked them to change any plot after every other potential financier had insisted on changes.”  The writers were also able to fulfill their original goal with “Monster’s Ball” when they were promised small roles in the film.  Rokos plays the prison warden; Addica plays a guard.

Lions Gate committed to finance the film once Billy Bob Thornton, the only native Southerner in the cast, committed to the role of Hank for a fraction of his regular salary.

With financing secure, casting began in earnest for the key role of Leticia, and competition was fierce.  “I was in an awkward position as a relatively new filmmaker,” admits Forster.  “It seemed like every great black actress wanted the part, and it was very, very tough to make a choice.  Because she is so beautiful and glamorous, frankly for a long time Halle was the underdog.  But she kept fighting for the part, and she was relentless in her pursuit.  She was also, at the end of the day, the best actor for the role.”

In an interview completed about half way through production, Forster observed this about Berry’s approach to her portrayal of Leticia: “It reminds me of a child who has been hurt when she was very little and has never been able to express her pain, and I feel like somehow that in her whole portrayal of the character she brings out these wounds, and ultimately she realizes that these wounds can be healed through love.”
About a week before shooting, Sean Combs, the hip-hop artist and producer, auditioned for and won the role of the condemned man, Lawrence Musgrove.  Another popular rap artist, Mos Def, was cast as Ryrus Cooper, the Grotowski’s neighbor.  A local New Orleans boy, Coronji Calhoun, filled the pivotal role of Leticia’s son, Tyrell.  Calhoun, who has never acted before, won the role in an open casting call.

“Monster’s Ball” was shot over five hot, humid weeks in May and June on the outskirts and in the neighborhoods of New Orleans.  The production moved two hours away, to the fields, cellblocks and death house of Louisiana’s State Penitentiary at Angola for one week to shoot prison interiors and exteriors.  The location was a trying experience for the cast and crew; the tremendous heat broke, but the torrential rains of a tropical storm broke it, and the crew barely got their exterior shots in a single afternoon of calm weather.

For Forster, those shots – depicting rows of chained prisoners off to work in the fields, guarded by mounted officers with shotguns – were essential to the narrative and to indicate transformation in Hank’s outlook following his son’s death.

“Those sequences are taken from Hank’s point of view as he drives to his place of work.  I made a point of never to show Hank outside his job, in an exterior establishing shot or something like that, until you see his car, because he is captured, caught in that prison and in that life, without really even knowing it.”

But it was the prison interiors were truly harrowing to shoot, since some scenes were photographed in the prison’s actual death chamber.  Some crewmembers dealt with their surroundings by making jokes; others were truly disturbed by their surroundings. For screenwriter Milo Addica, playing a guard on the death team, the reality of his surroundings hit him when he noticed someone’s initials carved into the wood of the electric chair.

Director Forster is convinced that the location had an impact on the performances.  “It is impossible for a human being to walk down death row and look into people’s eyes and not be moved,” he says.  You feel the vibe.  It’s palpable.  Anyone can associate with that feeling of dread. The hallways where we were shooting were tiny, and the actors and crew were often cramped.  There was literally no escape.”

Additionally, the cast and crew stayed at a Best Western motel during the Angola portion of the shoot.  The only place to stay for miles around, it was also the place where people from out of town visiting prisoners at Angola also stayed.

Shooting at Angola was made possible by the warden, Burl Cain, who not only granted the production access, but allowed for inmates to be hired as extras.  The fees paid to the inmates for this work went to the Inmate Welfare Fund, a pool of money that provides for such shared goods as new television sets in common areas.

*  *  *

Recently, screenwriters Rokos and Addica were asked by the trade publication Variety, what was the worst advice or studio note on a script they ever got?  Their reply: “Not enough dialog.”  “Monster’s Ball” is indeed a spare film when it comes to wordplay; the character of Hank, as portrayed by Billy Bob Thornton, is particularly reticent.

Director Marc Forster observes that Hank “always lived in shadow of father and never expressed his emotions.  He was never able to, because he was never allowed to. Personally, I come from a culture that is traditionally very emotionally restrained: you don’t cry, you don’t tell people you love them.  It just didn’t happen.”

Forster recalls that his family continued to be stoic and reserved even after his older brother committed suicide not long ago.  “When as a parent you have children and your child commits suicide, you automatically feel responsible and you blame yourself.  It’s probably the most horrible thing that can happen to a person.

“Yet in ‘Monster’s Ball, we never see Hank grieve,” Forster continues.  “But he does open himself up and talks about his feelings with Leticia. I always wanted a low-key performance from Billy Bob, since the other characters around Hank are very animated. Hank was hating himself and blaming himself, and I felt like the only way he might open up is if he felt like he had something in common with someone.”

“There are parallel events in Hank’s life and Leticia’s life,” says Forster, but their lives are not mirror images of one another, because they come from different backgrounds.  In her world, there is a greater physicality to her emotion, and the stakes are higher because of her poverty.”

Even so, Forster found the need to tone down some of Leticia’s scenes, such as the one in which she beats her son Tyrell after she discovers his stash of candy.  As written, the scene originally began with the violence and moved to quiet as Leticia and her son await Musgrove’s last phone call from Death Row.  The scene called for Leticia to not only slap Tyrell around, but to spit on him.  “It was much more physical,” Forster says, “but I thought it would be more effective to have the scene open with Leticia paralyzed by what was going on with her husband, then to lash out.  She goes out to buy liquor, and loses control when she comes back to find her son indulging, too.”

Similarly, Forster did not stick to the page in the scene between Leticia and Hank before they become intimate.   In the scene prior, Hank has exposed his feelings about the loss of his son for the first time.  Inside, after drinking together, Leticia becomes a raft of emotion.

“For the scene to work,” says Forster, “Halle really had to let it all hang out.  To prepare, I asked her to study herself, to try to put her finger on that moment when you are drinking, that moment between being drunk and not drunk.  I wanted her to play the character as straight as possible in that scene, to try to act in control as much as possible.  The last thing I wanted was for Halle and Billy Bob to imitate a drunk or out of control person, but to be aware that their characters were exposing so much in such a short time, and for it somehow to be OK.”

Again, Forster is convinced that the location in which they were shooting contributed to the performances.  “The house we found for Leticia’s house was in a really, really poor neighborhood,” Forster explains.  “We got the feeling that a lot had happened there, and I think we were even told that there was some alumni of Angola who had lived there. When we shot the scene I felt like I was a ghost in the room – like I was watching two people who had no idea they were being watched.  It was just me, the DP and script supervisor at that point, and I do think we managed to achieve a remarkable level of intimacy.  We were careful to never interrupt what Halle and Billy Bob were doing.  I wanted the audience to feel like they were a part of the lives they were watching.  The fact that it was real to me, and that I was emotionally effected, made me feel like we were doing something right.”

Forster is also particularly pleased with the confrontation scene between Leticia and Hank’s father, Buck.  “I always saw Buck as someone who had been living in a cave.  That’s the only world he knows. It’s a horrible moment, like in a horror movie, when you realize that a character you think you know is truly evil and much worse than you might have thought.  But it is also about having Leticia become aware of Hank’s dark past for the first time.”

Perhaps it is because Leticia knows that she is involved with a truly scarred man that chooses to stay with Hank at the end of the film.   As Leticia and Hank sit on the back porch, they are in the presence of three graves, a legacy of death that Hank has managed to survive.  Says Forster,

“When she realizes how many have died, I think Leticia makes a conscious choice to stay with Hank, and she chooses the path of forgiveness.  And because she is the one who chooses, she is liberated from her dependency on him for money and shelter.  If she had chosen a path of confrontation she would still be in a place of dependence, because she would have needed for him to defend his kindness to her.

“The way Halle plays Leticia, she has a chip on her shoulder, because there is so much racism in her world. Yet in spite of this, or maybe because of it, Leticia is surprised by Hank.  She is curious to find out what kind of man he really is, and when she finds out, she chooses not to run away.  He is maybe not such a monster after all.”
 

About the Cast

BILLY BOB THORNTON

Academy Award-winning writer, actor and director, Billy Bob Thornton has an extensive and impressive career in motion pictures, television and theatre.  Charismatic and uniquely talented, Thornton has established himself as one of the most sought after filmmakers of his generation.

The 1996 release of the critically acclaimed and phenomenally popular feature film “Sling Blade,” which he starred in and directed from an original script he wrote, firmly secured Thornton’s status as a preeminent filmmaker.  For his efforts, he was honored with both an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.  The film, produced by The Shooting Gallery and released by Miramax, also starred Robert Duvall, JT Walsh, Dwight Yokam and John Ritter.

Prior to “Sling Blade,” Thornton already had an extensive motion picture credit list.  He wrote and starred in the thrilling character drama “One False Move,” which brought him immediate critical praise.  Thornton’s powerful script (co-written with Tom Epperson) was enhanced by his intense performance as a hunted criminal.  The film, directed by Carl Franklin, was an unheralded sleeper success.

In addition, Thornton has been featured in such films as “The Winner,” for director Alex Cox, Paramount Pictures’ “Indecent Proposal” directed by Adrian Lyne, Deadman, for director Jim Jarmusch for Miramax, and in Tombstone,  directed by George Cosmatos for Buena Vista Pictures.  Thornton has also appeared in the films “On Deadly Ground,” “Bound By Honor,” “For the Boys” and “The Stars Fell on Henrietta.”

As a writer, Thornton has worked on numerous projects for United Artists, Miramax, Universal Studios, Warner Bros., Touchstone Pictures, Island Pictures, David Geffen Productions and HBO.  He also scripted  “A Family Thing,” a highly regarded feature film that starred Robert Duvall and James Earl Jones, for UA.

Thornton co-starred in the blockbuster action-adventure film “Armageddon” with Bruce Willis for producer Jerry Bruckheimer and he also co-starred opposite Sean Penn in “U-Turn,” directed by Oliver Stone and in “Primary Colors” opposite John Travolta and Emma Thompson for director Mike Nichols.  He also starred in the dark comedy “Pushing Tin” opposite John Cusack.

Thornton received both an Academy Award and Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his celebrated work in the tightly-woven drama “A Simple Plan” for director Sam Raimi.  He also garnered a Best Supporting Actor award from the Los Angeles Film Critics  Association and Best Supporting Actor nomination from the Screen Actors Guild.
 

More recently, Thornton directed “All the Pretty Horses,” based on the Cormac McCarthy best-selling novel.  The film was shot entirely on location and stars Matt Damon, Penelope Cruz and Henry Thomas, and opened last Christmas, which also saw the opening of “The Gift,” starring Cate Blanchette, Giovanni Ribisi and Hilary Swank, which Thornton co-wrote.

Thornton has also completed production on “Daddy and Them,” which he directed, wrote and stars in.  He also recently filmed “Wakin’ Up in Reno.”

Thornton will be seen this fall starring in “The Man Who Wasn’t There,” a new Coen Brothers film that had its world premiere at the recent Cannes Film Festival.

Thornton is can currently be seen on screen opposite Bruce Willis and Cate Blanchette in the hit comedy “Bandits.”
 

HALLE BERRY

Halle Berry is a beautiful and talented actress who has built a successful career on embracing demanding roles, both in television and films.  Berry has been honored with such prestigious awards as an Emmy, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and NAACP Image Award for her extraordinary and critically acclaimed performance in HBO’s film, “Introducing Dorothy Dandridge.”

Her latest film, “Swordfish,” with John Travolta and Hugh Jackman, opened in theatres at #1.  Directed by Dominic Sena and executive produced by Joel Silver, Berry starred as Ginger, a sexy femme fatale who may not be what she appears.
She was recently seen in 20th Century Fox’s box office hit “X-Men,” the action film based on the Marvel Comics characters.  She is attached to star in its sequel, which is currently being written.

Berry has also starred opposite Warren Beatty in Fox’s critically acclaimed socio-political comedy, “Bulworth.”  Directed and co-written by Beatty, “Bulworth” earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay for Beatty and co-writer, Jeremy Pikser.

Other feature film credits include “Why Do Fools Fall in Love,” Spike Lee’s “Jungle Fever,” “Losing Isaiah” opposite Jessica Lange, “Executive Decision” with Kurt Russell (for which she won a Blockbuster Award for Best Actress in an Action Drama), the international hit live-action version of “The Flintstones” with John Goodman, “The Rich Man’s Wife,” “The Last Boy Scout,” “Strictly Business” and Reginald Hudlin’s “Boomerang” opposite Eddie Murphy.
 

On television, Berry starred in the highly rated ABC mini-series, Oprah Winfrey Presents: “The Wedding.”  Directed by Charles Burnett, the mini-series also starred Lynn Whitfield, Eric Thal and Carl Lumbly.

Additional television credits include the title role in Alex Haley’s mini-series, “Queen.”  The highest rated sequel in television history, her performance earned Berry the NAACP Image Award for Best Actress, as well as Best Newcomer Award from the Hollywood Women’s Press Club.  Berry also starred opposite Jimmy Smits in Showtime’s original telefilm, “Solomon and Sheba.”

Last year, in recognition of her achievements as an actress, the Harvard Foundation at Harvard University honored Berry as Cultural Artist of the Year.  Currently, she serves as an International Spokesperson for Revlon.
 
 

HEATH LEDGER
 

Ledger was last seen starring in Columbia's "A Knight's Tale."  In this medieval film, he portrayed a peasant squire who takes on the identity of his master when the knight suffers an untimely demise.  The film is directed by Brian Helgeland ("L.A. Confidential"), who also wrote the screenplay.  Ledger is currently reteaming with Brian Helgeland for his next project "Sin Eater" for Twentieth Century Fox.

In addition to “Monster’s Ball,” Ledger will also soon star in the highly anticipated feature, "Four Feathers," for director Shekhar Kapur ("Elizabeth").  Based on A.E.W. Mason's novel "The Four Feathers," the story, set in 1898, follows a British officer (Ledger) who resigns his post before his nation's invasion of Sudan.  His friends and fiancee send him four white feathers, symbolizing cowardice, but he redeems his honor by disguising himself as an Arab and secretly saving the lives of those who branded him a coward.

Ledger starred in the Touchstone release "10 Things I Hate About You," a modern day telling of Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew."  In the film, he portrayed 'Patrick Verona' ("Shrew's" 'Patruchio'), a sullen youth with a mysterious past.  He is bribed by a friend to woo and win over the heart of 'Kat Stratford' (Julia Stiles), an ill-tempered harridan, whose acerbic wit is only matched by her steadfast determination to alienate any guy who might be remotely interested in her.

It was in Ledger's home town of Perth, Australia, where his acting career took flight.  At the age of ten, he enrolled in the local theatre company and, while performing on stage, began landing roles on such Australian television series' as "Clowning Around," "Bush Patrol," "Corrigan," "Ship to Shore" and "Home and Away."
Ledger was also a member of two highly reputable Australian theatre companies, the Globe Shakespeare Company and the Midnight Youth Acting Company.  While he performed on stage, he also completed co-starring roles in a number of independent films:  "Black Rock," "Paws," and most recently, "Two Hands," in which he stars opposite Bryan Brown.  This dark comedy screened at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival.

In 1997, Ledger landed a starring role in his first American television series, "Roar," for Universal and FOX television.  The mid-season replacement, which also co-starred Keri Russell ("Felicity"), didn't take Heath too far from home, filming in Queensland, Australia.  It was directly after this series that he landed his first American talent agent and decided to make his move to the United States.
 
 

PETER BOYLE
Buck Grotowski

“Everybody Loves Raymond’s” favorite ‘Frank Barone’ is one of the country’s most beloved small screen characters, for which Peter Boyle has been honored this year with a third Emmy Award nomination.

The former Christian Brothers monk, who met his wife of 25 years while in full monster make up for “Young Frankenstein” is one of the premier character actors of our time, having appeared on the big screen opposite Robert Redford, Robert DeNiro, Bill Murray, Nicholas Cage and countless others.
His unique talent makes him a practitioner of a vanishing art - - an actor so versatile that he can go from playing comedic roles to dramatic parts without flinching. Boyle’s breakthrough role in the film “Joe,” where he played a drunken factory worker named ‘Joe Curran,’ who hates hippies, blacks, and anyone who is "different,” is the complete antithesis of Boyle whose political views are way left.

In 1971, when offered the lead in “The French Connection, “ Boyle turned it down, fearing the public would again identify him as a right wing, political cousin of “Joe.”  After a stream of steady television and film work including a star turn as Senator Joseph McCarthy in a 1977 NBC mini-series for which he is very proud, Boyle went on to win an Emmy for a guest spot on a 1996 episode of  “The X Files.”

This year, he celebrates his third Emmy nomination for his portrayal of ‘Frank Barone’ in “Everybody Loves Raymond.”

Boyle’s other credits include: "The Candidate," "Taxi Driver," "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure," "The Santa Clause," "While You Were Sleeping," and "Dr. Dolittle.  Among his television credits are the CBS mini-series "Echoes in the Darkness," and the television films "Guts and Glory: The Rise and Fall of Oliver North," "The Tragedy of Flight 103: The Inside Story," and "In the Lake of the Woods."
He was born in Northtown, Pa., and now lives in New York.
 
 

SEAN COMBS
Lawrence Musgrove

Sean “P. Diddy” Combs has torn down the barricades that segregated music for so long. Through both his own music and music he has produced, Combs has allowed different genres of music, among them hip-hop, pop, soul, rap and underground, to integrate. In the process, he has given birth to a whole new musical form.  As CEO and founder of Bad Boy Entertainment, a chart-dominating producer, a rapper and pop phenomenon, and most recently, a film actor (opposite Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau in “Made”), Combs has become one of today's most accomplished - and unforgettable - personalities.

Combs attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., but his real education began working for Andre Harrell (current president of Bad Boy Entertainment). For his first assignment, 20-year-old Combs constructed the careers of Uptown artists Jodeci and Mary J. Blige. In the process, he helped to create a new musical genre:  hip-hop soul.  His collaboration with Mary
J. Blige on her second album, "My Life," produced a classic that spoke to a new generation of youth.  When Combs left Uptown in 1993, he reemerged the very same year with a groundbreaking new company of his own, Bad Boy Entertainment.

Bad Boy''s break can be credited mostly to the making and launching of Notorious B.I.G.'s debut album "Ready to Die," which eventually earned double-platinum status.  Bad Boy also signed and produced such platinum acts as Faith Evans (then wife of Notorious B.I.G.), female trio Total, and male vocal group 112. Combs then also involved himself in several projects as
producer, executive producer, remixer and occasional singer in outside projects including hits by Mariah Carey, TLC, Usher, Tony Thompson, Tevin Campbell, Method Man, MC Lyte, Lil' Kim and others.

In 1997, Combs released his own solo album debut, "No Way Out."  The album generated nearly two dozen industry award nominations and won two Grammy awards, including Best Rap Album of the Year.

In 1999, Sean released his second album, "Forever," which enjoyed multi-platinum success. With hits like "Satisfy You" (which earned #1 single on both Billboard's Rap and R&B charts) and "Best Friend," "Forever" demonstrated that Combs ability to innovate and entertain has only improved with time.  Most recently, Combs launched the careers of Black Rob and Carl Thomas, both of whom have already dominated charts and are being celebrated by fans across the world.
 

MOS DEF
Ryrus Cooper

Mos Def is an MC whose devotion to hip-hop and passion for social consciousness combine with a synergy seldom witnessed in rap history.  Mos Def is a child of hip-hop’s Golden Era of superhero MCs (Rakim, Big Daddy Kane) and new school leaders (De La Soul, Jungle Brothers).  A native Brooklynite, Mos Def grew in time where “most of the people who were fans  (of hip hop) were also active fans in the culture in some way.  Mos not only imbedded all the hip-hop influences around him, he also absorbed knowledge from across the artistic spectrum.

Encouraged by his younger brother (Medina Green’s DCQ) Mos Def first graced a record with UTD’s “My Kung Fu” in 1994.  Mos was clearly a talent to watch and would go on to make indelible cameo appearances on songs like the Bush Babee’s “Love Song” and De La Soul’s “Big Brother Beat.”

It was only a matter of time that Mos would find his way to a solo at indie upstart Rawkus.  There, Mos found a label willing to play by ‘his’ rules: “I liked being a free agent, I liked negotiating my own terms, working with my own friends,” he says.  The result was the instant classic “Universal Magnetic” in 1996, a single that would catapult Mos into an underground favorite.

In 1999, Mos Def release his first solo album, entitled Black On Both Sides, the album speaks to Mos’ firm anchor in the lived experience of quotidian life as a black person.
With Black On Both Sides, Mos Def taps into a centuries old tradition of black expression that is both historically relevant and imaginative as well.

Perhaps one of the album’s most striking songs is the simply titled “Hip Hop,” a short but powerful reflection on rap music’s complex culture and industry, Mos runs through a brilliant, powerful set of metaphoric distillations of hip-hop comparing music to “a backwater remedy, bitter and tender memory, a class E felony, facing the death penalty.”  He ends with the ominous warning, “hip hop will simply amaze you, praise you, pay you, do whatever you say to, but black, it can’t say you.”

This admonition from Mos bespeaks a deep wisdom frightening to consider…that hip-hop, for all its beauty and power, still can’t redeem your humanity.
 

CORONJI CALHOUN
Tyrell

Louisiana native (need to check this) Coronji Calhoun was chosen from an open casting call to portray Halle Berry’s son Tyrell in the upcoming film “Monster’s Ball.”  Before this break, the 10-year-old’s only acting experience had been in school plays like “Rumpelstiltskin” and Christmas plays.  Like many 4th graders, Coronji likes to play basketball, video games, and skate in his free time.  He also loves to dance.  He plans on continuing his acting career and is currently looking at scripts for his next possible project.
 
 

About the Filmmakers

MARC FORSTER
Director

Marc Forster was born and raised in Switzerland.  In 1990 after completing his Swiss Maturity degree, he moved to New York and studied film at NYU, graduating in 1993.  He stayed in New York to complete two documentary films for European television: “Silent Windows,” an intimate look at teenage suicide, and “Our Story”, a touching exploration of the lives of child burn victims.  Then Forster was offered the opportunity to direct “Loungers,” which was completed in 1996 and won the Slamdance Audience Award.  Shortly after, he began collaboratively writing and set out to direct “Everything Put Together,” which premiered at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival in the dramatic competition and earned him the Movado Someone to Watch / Independent Spirit Award.
 

WILL ROKOS
Screenwriter
Will Rokos, 36, was born and raised in Hickory Flats, Georgia. He graduated from Ohio State University with a degree in literature.  His adaptation of Walter Van Tilburg Clark's novel "The Ox-Bow Incident" was produced Off-Broadway at The Little Theater in New York City 1989 and at the Missouri Rep in Kansas City in 1992.  He acted in both productions.

His original play  "Most Wanted" was produced in Stockholm, Sweden in 1992.

His original screenplay "Bleeding Heart," the story of a Korean American vampire living in New York City, was filmed in NYC in 1992 and featured at Asian American Film Festivals in New York and Los Angeles in 1993.  Another of his original screenplays, "The Swedish Job," is being produced by Janet Yang and is scheduled to film in Stockholm next year.

As an actor Will has appeared on Broadway in "The Tempest" with Frank Langella in 1992, many Off-Broadway and regional productions; as Marty on the soap "All My Children," and Officer Mike Briggs on "One Life to Live” in 1993 and 1994.
 

MILO ADDICA
Screenwriter
Born in 1963, Milo Addica grew up in SoHo, Manhattan.  He attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst where he studied theatre before coming back to the city where he acted in numerous plays Off-Broadway.  In one of these plays he met Will Rokos whom he later collaborated with on Monsters Ball. He studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Acting and took a playwriting course at Hunter College where he wrote his first play and saw it produced Off-Broadway at The Little Theatre.  Moving to Los Angeles in the early 90’s working in television on numerous shows including "thirtysomething," "LA Law" and some movie of the weeks. Monster’s Ball was written in 1995. During Monster’s Ball’s production period, Milo co-wrote a script for Warner Bros., "Man-Made."  Since then, he has adapted two books, “One Foot off the Gutter” for Oil Factory Films and “Mack Bolan” for The Firm.  He is currently working on a script for director James Marsh with the Film Four Lab and his own work, which he plans to direct next spring.
 

ROBERTO SCHAEFER
Cinematographer

Roberto Schaefer photographed Marc Forster’s two previous films, “Loungers” and “Everything Put Together.”  In addition, he has photographed Christopher Guest’s classic “mockumentaries,” “Best In Show” and “Waiting for Guffman.”  Schaefer has also shot a number of television shows, as well as dozens of music videos and TV commercials.
 

MONROE KELLY
Production Designer

Monroe Kelly is a native of New Orleans, Louisiana.  Trained as an Architect, he began his career in the film industry as a set designer, art director, and production designer.  He works on feature films, television movies, television series, and international, national and regional commercials.  He has also provided art direction for music videos and still photographers.
He has worked as a set designer, art director and production designer on a variety of projects including “Interview with the Vampire” starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, “The Pelican Brief” starring Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington, “Double Jeopardy” starring Tommy Lee Jones and Ashley Judd, “Last Dance” starring Sharon Stone, “A Murder of Crows” starring Cuba Gooding, Jr., “Heaven’s Prisoners” starring Alec Baldwin and “Tempted” starring Burt Reynolds.  He was the art director for the series “Orleans” and production designer for MTV’s “Real World New Orleans.”
 

MARK URMAN
Executive Producer

As President, Feature Projects, for Lions Gate Films, Urman was responsible for the acquisition and development of “Monster’s Ball” and oversaw the production of the film, serving as its Executive Producer.

Urman joined Lions Gate in 1998 as Co-President, Lions Gate Releasing. Prior to that he served as Senior VP of Dennis Davidson Associates, an international motion picture p.r. firm where he headed the company's domestic division.

Before joining DDA in 1989, Urman spent nearly six years as VP of East Coast Publicity at Columbia Pictures. From 1982-1984, he was head of marketing at Triumph Films, the specialized film distribution division that Columbia created in partnership with Gaumont. Previously, he worked for several years in the International Marketing department of United Artists.

In August of 2001, Urman left Lions Gate to head the New York operations of ThinkFilm, a new film distribution company based in Toronto.
 

MICHAEL PASEORNEK
Executive Producer

Michael Paseornek, President of Lions Gate Films Productions, started the U.S. operation of Cinepix Film Properties (CFP) in New York almost six years ago.  When the indie producer/distributor was purchased by Lions Gate Entertainment two years ago, he was named President of Lions Gate Films Productions.  In that role, he is a key member of the management team that greenlit a series of acclaimed films.

In 2001, those films included, in addition to “Monster’s Ball,”  “Frailty,” “The Cat’s Meow,” and “Get Well Soon.”

In 1999, three Lions Gate productions received festival and critical acclaim.  “I’m Losing You” (executive produced by Paseornek and starring Rosanna Arquette, Andrew McCarthy and Frank Langella)) was invited to the Toronto and Telluride Festivals.  “Dog Park” (Natasha Henstridge, Janeane Garafolo) was the Opening Night Gala at Toronto, and “Hi-Life” (executive produced by Paseornek and starring Eric Stoltz, Campbell Scott, Katrin Cartlidge and Daryl Hannah) premiered at the Vancouver Festival.  “Vig” (Peter Falk, Lauren Holly, Tim Hutton and Freddie Prinz Jr.), produced by Paseornek and Miguel Valenti, was sold to HBO.
 

Paseornek also served as executive producer for Lions Gate on  Mary Haron’s “American Psycho” (Christian Bale, Reese Witherspoon, Willem Dafoe, Chloe Sevigny, Jared Leto) and “Prisoner of Love.”  This winter, Lions Gate will shoot “Salami Man” in London followed by Academy Award-winner Roger Avary’s “Gala-Dali.”

Two of the films he greenlit were in competition at the Sundance Film Festival in 1998, one that he executive produced, “Buffalo 66” (starring Vincent Gallo, Christina Ricci and Anjelica Huston), and another, which he produced with Elinor Reid, “Jerry & Tom” (starring Joe Montegna, Sam Rockwell, Ted Danson, Charles Durning and purchased domestically by Miramax).  In addition, a film Paseornek produced with Karen Severin and Karen Weaver, “Johnny Skidmarks” (starring Francis McDormand, John Lithgow and Peter Gallagher), was honored with a special Sundance screening, marking three Lions Gate films premiering at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival.

Paseornek began his career after graduating from New York University in 1974 when he became the writing partner of former National Lampoon editor Michel Choquette.  He then became a humorist-speechwriter for some of the nation’s leading business executives.  He also co-wrote the film “Stitches,” was a writer on the ABC series “Omni,” script-doctor a number of film projects, and landed development deals with Warner Bros. and Paramount.

In the late 70s, Paseornek met CFP’s Canadian co-founders John Dunning and Andre Link and developed the sequel to their comedy hit “Meatballs.”  He went on to rewrite their Twentieth Century Fox production of “The Vindicator” and adapted several novels they had optioned into screenplays.  Dunning and Link financed his award-winning AIDS documentary “Safe” in 1987 and his directorial debut, “Vibrations,” acquired by Miramax for their Dimension label.
 

ERIC KOPELOFF
Line Producer

Kopeloff recently served as the production executive/associate producer on the film "Get Well Soon" for Lions Gate Films starring Courtney Cox and Vincent Gallo.  Other recent credits include associate produced/ line produced "Perfume" starring Jeff Goldblum, Rita Wilson, Mariel Hemingway, Paul Sorvino, Omar Epps, Amber Valetta, Peter Gallagher and Michelle
Williams.  The film Premiered at Sundance 2001.  Lions Gate is releasing "Perfume.”  Kopeloff line produced the independent feature "Ropewalk" starring Peter Facinelli, Fred Ward, Lena Headey, Nathan Bexton and Max Perlich.  Kopeloff also associate produced/ line produced the film "Home Sweet Hoboken" starring Ben Gazzara, Aida Turturro, Jayce Bartok,and Issach
deBankoe;  produced an Eric Bogosian monologue, "The Wedding Toast," directed by Bob Balaban, airing on Showtime; line produced the feature film "Need of Hell" starring Robert Burke and Nick Sandow; and co-produced "Eventual Wife", a short film starring Tommy Crudup, production designed by Mel Bourne and directed by Brian Bantry airing on HBO and Cinemax.  Kopeloff served as the New York executive for the now defunct BlackWatch Releasing, the Canadian distribution company that released all Sony Pictures Classics and Shooting Gallery's films in Canada including "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

In 1997, Kopeloff produced the opening of the Sundance Film Festival starring Al Pacino, Laura Dern, Stanley Tucci, John Turturro and directed by the award winning commercial directors Amy Hill and Chris Reiss. Kopeloff has line produced commercials for Tony Kaye Films, H.S.I, Epoch Films and for clients such as American Express, Volvo and Dunlop. In 1998, "Nathan Grimm," a short film directed by a student Academy Award winner, which Kopeloff produced, was selected as the winner of the Hollywood Film Festival and was chosen to compete as one of 100 films for the 1998 short live action Academy Awards. Additional experience includes consulting on project development for Paramount Pictures; assisting Woody Allen's editor Susan Morse on "Bullets over Broadway,” "Don't Drink the Water,” "Mighty Aphrodite,” "Everyone Says I Love You" and "Deconstructing Harry"; served as one of the editors for the films in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio; developed and produced a one hour documentary on the Jazz musician Erroll Garner; associate produced twelve mini-documentaries aired on CNN Europe. He received his undergraduate degree in film and masters degree in international business from Emerson College, Boston. Eric is a member of the Directors Guild of America (DGA).
 

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