American stars Halle Berry and Mark Wahlberg star as old flames in the thriller, The Union. LOS ANGELES – Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry play old flames in the action comedy The Union, which sees a construction worker named Mike (Wahlberg) being recruited by ex-girlfriend Roxanne (Berry) into a high-stakes spy mission. And the two American movie stars also have a long shared history in real life.
At the recent Los Angeles premiere of the new thriller, Berry, 58, reveals they “go way back” as friends even though this is their first time on screen together. “I’ve known Mark since the late 1980s,” says Berry, who won the Best Actress Oscar for the romance drama Monster’s Ball (2001) – the first African American and non-white actress to take home the award. Linking arms with Wahlberg on stage as they introduce The Union, which premieres on Netflix on Aug 16, she says: “We’ve been friends for so long and working with Mark was the thing I didn’t know I needed.
” It was Wahlberg, a producer on the movie, who called her up and asked her to co-star. The thriller follows Mike and his long-lost high school sweetheart, secret agent Roxanne, as they navigate a dangerous mission across Europe. And the chemistry between the characters on screen reflects how well she and Wahlberg know each other, Berry says.
“We got to put our relationship and our sensibilities on display in this film, and it’s a tribute to how long we’ve known each other, our work ethic and our desire to do something good together.” It also made things a breeze on set. “To work with someone you know so well – and you come from the same part of the world and grew up the same, with all the same references with culture – and to be on a set with someone you trust and like so much, it made every day feel like we were just playing together,” says Berry, who also played mutant Storm in the X-Men superhero film series (2000 to 2020) and was a Bond girl in the spy actioner Die Another Day (2002).
“I’d never had that experience before, so it was nice.” The Union’s cast members Halle Berry and Mark Wahlberg at a premiere of the film at the Egyptian Theatre Hollywood in Los Angeles on Aug 12. PHOTO: REUTERS Wahlberg, 53, also gushes over his co-star, and says it was a dream come true to finally collaborate with Berry after being a fan of her work for many years.
“She is great at everything,” says the performer, who was Oscar-nominated for Best Supporting Actor for the crime drama The Departed (2006). “I’ve always been a huge admirer of her work, and doing anything with Halle is an absolute joy. “And she is what she appears to be on-screen: She’s accessible, sweet, kind, thoughtful and tough as nails,” adds Wahlberg, who starred in the 2014 and 2017 Transformers action films.
Berry, a former model and beauty queen, was also the perfect choice to play Roxanne, whom Mike had always felt was “out of his league”, and then turns his world upside down when she suddenly reappears 25 years later. “To wait 25 years (for someone), who better than Halle Berry to walk through that door?” says the father of four children aged 14 to 20, who describes his character in the film as a “blue-collar version of James Bond”. The pair also thoroughly enjoyed training for and shooting The Union’s action scenes, which meant working with a former Central Intelligence Agency operative.
“It was actually really cool,” says Wahlberg, who is known for doing many of his own stunts, including on films such as action comedy The Family Plan (2023) and war movie Lone Survivor (2013). “Halle is good at everything. I think I was better at the sniper shooting, but I’ve done that before,” explains the star, who played a sniper in the 2007 thriller Shooter.
Berry, who has done fight and stunt training for action movies such as John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019) and Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017), was happy for the chance to show off her martial arts moves. “I’m pretty athletic and very competitive,” says the mum of a 16-year-old girl and 11-year-old boy. “I love pushing my body and trying new things and challenges, and I love just martial arts.
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