Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry are opening up about how they balance their jobs as parents and actors.
While speaking to Audacy ahead of the Aug. 16 release of their new Netflix film The Union, the actor, 53, and actress, 58, revealed how they noticed each other impressively balancing their time between their kids and their careers.
Berry said Wahlberg makes himself “very available” to his daughters Ella, 20, and Grace, 14, and sons Michael, 18, and Brendan, 15, whom he shares with his wife Rhea Durham.
“If one of his kids called in that moment, we’d be on a roll waiting to go, and he’d be like, ‘Hello’… He’s relentless at that,” she said on the radio platform. “He is very available to his children. He was talking to them all the time, all hours of the night.”
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Berry, who’s a mom to daughter Nahla Ariela and son Maceo-Robert, continued to praise her costar for his ability to be “prepared” and “professional” amid his variety of responsibilities.
“He does a hundred things too, like all these businesses and stuff,” Berry said of Wahlberg. “He [is] flying somewhere and he comes back, but he comes back prepared. Like, you think somebody’s doing all this stuff he’s doing, he’d kind of be phoning it in. But he really knows his stuff. He’s prepared. And it was nice to work with people that are professional, ’cause it doesn’t always happen today.”
The dad of four similarly commended Berry on her ability to prioritize her children, stating that above all, she’s a “mom first.”
He added, “The kids are the top priority… to see that she can balance all of those things and this career and being Halle Berry, but becoming [her The Union character] Roxanne, and doing all these things. And I know it’s not easy, but she makes it look easy.”
Despite focusing on her children, Berry emphasized that being a mom is not her only identifier.
“Part of being a mom doesn’t mean that I’m just a mom, that that defines me,” the mother of two said. “I’m still an artist. I’m still a woman. I still have aspirations outside of being a mother. And so I love that they know that I’m me. Before I was a mom, I was me. And I try to stay connected to that so that my life doesn’t turn into, ‘I’m only a mom.’ That’s a wonderful part of who I am, but it’s a part of it. I try not to lose the other parts of myself.”
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As an actor, Wahlberg “embraced” becoming a dad inside and outside of his acting opportunities, he said.
“As I get older, I’ve also embraced being older, playing a dad,” he shared. “Like a lot of guys, they don’t want to, or actresses as well, don’t want to necessarily play their age. I look forward to playing a grandfather. I look forward to, you know, if I’m lucky enough to still get great parts, play other roles, and age gracefully.”
Berry agreed and explained how acting in older roles as impacted her.
“It certainly changed me as a mother, but what it also connected me to was [that] I don’t worry what my children will think about what I do.”
“You know, if it’s not appropriate for them to see, then they don’t see it. I still do what I wanna do as an artist. I want to instill in them [that] you have to follow your own dream, follow your passion, do what makes you tick,” she continued.
The Union is now streaming on Netflix.