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Halle Berry reveals why she barely showered for her role in latest horror movie: "It just felt dirty..."

The story follows their desperate struggle to maintain their sacred bond while tethered together as they face an unknown evil force.

For proof that Halle Berry's commitment to her craft knows no bounds, look no further than the actress' revelations on filming the horror thriller 'Never Let Go,' which bowed in theaters this fall. The Oscar-winning actress went to incredible lengths to portray June, a mother protecting her twin sons from a malevolent spirit in their isolated cabin. "I love the darker, the deeper... when you can show up to a movie set, and no matter what you look like, it'll work for the day," Berry told Movie Web. She fully embraced her character's messy and rough vibe, even skipping showers during the film's production. "Our teeth were all yellowed, our hair was all messed up. Like, I didn't take a shower half the time because it just helped me feel, you know, it just felt dirty."

The psychological thriller stars Berry with newcomers Percy Daggs IV and Anthony B. Jenkins playing her sons, Nolan and Samuel. The story follows their desperate struggle to maintain their sacred bond while tethered together, literally and figuratively, as they face an unknown evil force. Berry was particularly drawn to the complexity of her character's mental state. "While this mother was a little dark and maybe struggling with a little bit of mental illness, in some ways. She had been driven crazy, or was she crazy? Or was the evil real? Was it not real? Was she torturing them... You had a lot of questions," she said, explaining the ambiguous nature of her role.

Filming was intense for the young leads and happened over a packed three-month schedule. "We were rushing a lot. It was going very fast," Jenkins revealed. Berry attested to professionalism from her young co-stars: "They always rose to the level. We never went without getting a great shot because they always pulled it out." The physical demands of the shoot weren't limited to appearance: the cast performed a great number of stunts themselves, and Berry, alongside her younger castmates, spent an inordinate amount of time working with stunt coordinators to make the action very much real. That came with some memorable setbacks—the one where Jenkins face-planted in a dragging scene seems particularly remembered—but such slips were quickly rolled off.

"I love psychological thrillers," Berry said of what led her to the film. "When I read the script, I didn't know if Mama was schizophrenic or if The Evil was real, and as you go through the movie, that was what I struggled with the whole time I read it." From the direction by Alexandre Aja, 'The Hills Have Eyes,' and executive produced by 'Deadpool & Wolverine's' Shawn Levy, the film has continued to keep audiences engaged since its release in September, as per CBR.

Since the film's theatrical release, critics and viewers have debated the movie's ambiguous ending, which Berry herself revels in: "The beauty of it is that it's open-ended and we can all take away from it what we think the truth of the matter is." For Berry, the film's exploration of maternal instinct resonated deeply. "What will you do for your children? And I think she proved in this movie: absolutely anything," she reflected. 

'Never Let Go,' released on September 20, marked a return for Berry into the horror genre and follows her appearance in the Netflix action comedy 'The Union' with Mark Wahlberg earlier this year. The psychological horror thriller has become one of this season's most discussed films in its category, tending to drive conversations on the nature of reality versus paranoia in modern horror storytelling.