Halle Berry on Her “Mind-Boggling” Experience as a Cannes Film Festival Juror, Adapting to Its New Dress Code, and Her Definition of Beauty

As the Cannes Film Festival 2025 nears its shut, Academy Award–profitable actor Halle Berry is reflecting on her first time as a juror for the 78th installment of the global movie competition.

“I’ve learned so much listening to all [the jurors] talk and speak, and they’ve been so generous with their knowledge and with their heart,” she lately instructed Vanity Fair amid a hectic time table of showing at photocalls, looking at motion pictures, and attending occasions across the Croisette. “Just like on a movie set you get really close with your costars because you know you have to, your time is very limited and finite, and so we’ve also gotten very close very quickly because we’re talking about things that affect us deeply, and we’re sharing our own personal experiences with the movies and the art and the cinema. It’s just been one of the most life-enriching experiences I think I’ve ever had.”

This 12 months’s jury president is Juliette Binoche, and Berry is joined by way of fellow jurors Payal Kapadia, Alba Rohrwacher, Leïla Slimani, Dieudo Hamadi, Hong Sangsoo, Carlos Reygadas, and Jeremy Strong. After viewing all the motion pictures entered into pageant, the gang will make a decision upon the competition’s greatest honor: the Palme d’Or. Recipients of the coveted award lately come with Anora director Sean Baker, Anatomy of a Fall director Justine Triet, and Triangle of Sadness director Ruben Östlund.

In advance of the Palme d’Or rite on Saturday, May 24 (the remaining day of the competition), Berry spoke with Vanity Fair about her revel in as a first-time juror, the name of the game in the back of her skin care regimen, and the way she treated the adjustments to the Cannes Film Festival’s get dressed code.

This interview has been edited and condensed for readability.

Vanity Fair: Hi, Halle, how are you?

Halle Berry: I’m drained. I’m exhausted. I think nice.

Tell me about your good looks regimen and what it’s been like whilst attending Cannes.

My preparation is more or less like what it’s most often after I paintings on a film set. My skin care is extra on level than standard and it’s at all times a large a part of my regimen. I in reality consider you must get started that early in lifestyles and it has to grow to be a part of your on a daily basis. You can’t flip again the palms of time, you must get started it early and be steady and eager about it. So that section hasn’t been very other for me. Just taking good care of my pores and skin, giving my make-up artist a blank, just right canvas to paintings with—wholesome pores and skin, blank pores and skin, transparent pores and skin. It’s simply been about moisturizing, cleansing, cleaning, exfoliating, and no longer dressed in make-up on every occasion I don’t must, which has been an actual present. When I’m going to my jury screenings, we don’t must be made up, we will roll in alternatively we roll in, and I’ve in reality been making the most of the ones instances the place I will simply have blank pores and skin and no longer must have make-up on.