Bruised, an inspirational sports story directed by and starring the legendary Halle Berry, charts one woman's return to form after flirting with near-oblivion. After attempting to escape the ring and subsequently quitting MMA altogether, Jackie Justice is lost and aimless in her life until her young son walks back into it. Kickstarted by a newfound motherly duty, Jackie's fighting spirit comes back and she trains with infamous instructor Bobbi Buddhakan Berroa (Sheila Atim) to get back into shape. Bruised is now available in select theaters and premieres on Netflix on November 24.
Atim spoke to Screen Rant about her take on Buddhakan's zen and her own collaboration with her director and co-star.
Screen Rant: Buddhakan is Jackie Justice's trainer. There's a great quote the Buddhakan says, "Nobody practices meditation and is zen because they're doing things right." Can you talk to me a little bit about Buddhakan and some of the struggles that she had to deal with in this film?
Sheila Atim: I really loved that quote because I think there can be this perception that, people who have some kind of practice, whether it's meditation or spiritual practice or whatever, have got it all figured out, and there's a kind of righteousness about it. Actually, it's more that these people have had to find a process. They've had to find a way to manage themselves and manage the obstacles and struggles in their life. We're all flawed and we all have to just kind of stumble our way through life and figure it out.
I very much see Bobbi as one of those people, and you can kind of see that she's got some scars and she's got some battle wounds and she talks a little bit about some of her past in the film; past relationships and it's not very clear how she's got to New Jersey. She's a British Black woman, who's in New Jersey. Where did you come from? But you get the sense that she's kind of traversed a lot of lands, both literally and figuratively. And this is where she's at. This is just the stage that she's at in her journey and it's not perfect, but it's working. It's keeping things moving along for now.
What did you want to bring to the role of Buddhakan that wasn't necessarily on the page?
Sheila Atim: One of the things was her being British actually, which kind of happened by accident because, the casting breakdown said, "Audition in your own accent". I don't know how far they cast the net in terms of international casting, but I was like, "Oh, okay. They just want my British accent." I think they were like, "Ah, this is interesting." But that really added to the sense of somebody who is a little bit of a nomad, little bit of somebody who's can just up and leave and is again on a journey and doesn't have the same kinds of roots as the other people who are from New Jersey or from the States in the story. There was definitely that, that when the dialects coach Denise and Halle spoke to me about it, I was like, "Oh yeah, 100%. Let's keep that. I think that's a really good idea."
I also, I mean, I think it is in the script, but I really wanted to make sure that she wasn't just this kind of hardheaded trainer that said, "Go, go, go, go." And that's it because that would've been kind of easy to do. I wanted to try and find layers of delicacy in there that have been wrapped up and maybe shut away, but they exist.
Buddhakan's a well-rounded character in this film and she's quite amazing, but Halle Berry is making her directorial debut in this film and she knocks it out of the park. This is some of the best MMA action I've ever seen on screen. Can you talk to me about working with her as a collaborator and what her directing style added to Bruised?
Sheila Atim: She is so easy to collaborate with because everything she says makes sense. Her vision is like crystal and she's really nice as well. It's just nice to work with her and she's so hardworking as well. She'll be pushing and going for gold. I had such a wonderful time working with her and I was so proud of her, which it might sound weird to say, but I was really proud of her when I was watching the monitors of some of the fighting stuff that she was doing, and I was just like, "Wow, it looks so great." She has to do that and then give notes on herself, and give from everyone else and then have production meetings, and then, all this stuff. I was just like, "I just have to go home and go to sleep."
