When Halle Berry made her big-screen debut as the crack-addicted Vivian in the most harrowing section of Spike Lee's "Jungle Fever," she put the entire world on notice that she was going to be an actor first and a movie star second. Obviously, she would quickly learn early in her career to play the Hollywood game and accept thinly-written roles that asked her to do little more than look like one of the most breathtakingly beautiful people on the planet, but she never went more than a year or two without challenging herself. This was particularly difficult to do, given the dearth of complex roles being written for Black women at the time.

Berry was 10 years into her film acting career when she landed the role that would change everything for her. As Leticia Musgrove in Marc Forster's bleak 2001 drama "Monster's Ball," she summoned up a fierce symphony of heartbreak,...