Halle Berry talks about Gothika, a ghost story in which her character, psychiatrist Miranda Grey, wakes up as a patient in the very asylum where she worked, with no memory of committing a terrible crime

You've been quoted as saying you were actually quite scared by some of the movie's scenes during filming
It was creepy rather than scary! At the end of the day, we all know it's a movie and that this stuff isn't really happening - but it was a little creepy to be in dark dungeon-type places, spaces where you knew real deaths had taken place.

It was always very cold and there was just some element in the air that made us all feel like we all weren't truly alone where we were shooting, and that lent to the spookiness of the filmmaking.

Did you ever go home wishing you were making a musical instead of a horror picture?
[laughs] Oh no, I loved the three months we spent making a horror movie. It was a great departure for me because I've never worked in this genre before.

I was tempted to go back and watch The Shining and some of those really great horror or thrillers, but I resisted because this has to be a film that stands on its own and I didn't want to mimic or copy things I'd seen before.

But it was a relief at the end. I enjoyed the experience - it was really cathartic for me, most movies usually are.

I've also grown as an actor as I've got older. I've learned how to go to work, immerse myself 100 per cent in the character, and then at the end of the day take it all off and go back, get a nice bubble bath, have a nice massage and realise that is not my life. And that feels good.

Didn't you have a paranormal experience of your own while filming your Dorothy Dandridge biopic in 1999?
People who believe in ghosts are the ones who have had that experience. Our nature is to be very sceptical: unless we've seen it, we don't believe it. I did have a couple of experiences on Dorothy Dandridge. Her spirit or some spirit was around me all the time. I knew it, so did the crew and everybody around me. Nothing outlandish happened; it was just a feeling that we would all get. Strange things would happen that couldn't be explained other than by saying, "OK, something supernatural has got to be happening here".

You throw yourself about a lot in this film, I wonder if you injured yourself?
In Gothika I had a broken arm. It was in a scene that didn't involve any stunts, Robert Downey Jnr twisted my arm the wrong way and it just...broke [laughs]. But we're friends. It was an accident, just one of those freaky things that happen while making this odd movie.

So we had to stop filming for eight weeks while I had a full-blown cast on and after that my full arm cast was reduced to a small very thin cast from my wrist to my elbow and I finished with that little cast on.

Was it the same arm that your character injures onscreen during the film?
No, it was the other arm! But we thought it would be a good camouflage - people would think it was the arm that was bandaged, so they never really looked at the other arm and I think a lot of people maybe missed the cast on the other arm because they were focusing on the arm with the white bandage. In a few places in the movie, you can see my cast but nobody seems to have noticed it.

What was it like working with Penelope Cruz?
Penelope was great casting, a very opposite type because she's so beautiful, and we get her to take her make-up off and play a dark character in a dark place - I thought she was very believable and I was really happy to see her take a risk.

Did you know her before?
Only in passing, like you see people at events or functions and you say hello. I was a fan of her work - I loved her in Blow. We had no rehearsal in this film, we hit the ground running but we bonded through the work, over the days. We did spend a lot of time together shooting those scenes.

Did the fact that your mother was a psychiatric nurse have an effect on your response to the role? I think so and I think that initially that's why I responded so positively to the part: it felt so familiar to me when I first read it because my mother was a nurse in a psych for 35 years - practically all of my life. I was very used to hearing her talking about it and telling me stories. I'd been to her institution many times so it was very familiar, a world that I knew.

And your father was also a hospital attendant. Did that make you feel it was almost destiny bringing you to this role? Yes I do feel that it was destiny, but not because of that. Everything happens for a reason in life, I think.

As a successful African-American woman do you find pressurised by certain expectations?
It's not so much the pressure, but I do take it very seriously. I know they're watching and that other people of colour perhaps get a sense of hope, or maybe it inspires them to achieve their goals and realise their dreams. But I don't get so bogged down with it that it becomes a pressure. I know I'm only one human being and I'm only making one tiny contribution and it's nothing more than that.

Your next film is Catwoman, and it's already attracted some comment about the look of the film I love the look of the film; it's modern, it's edgy, it's very much reflective of the 21st century and who women are today. As for the controversy about the look of the film - you can't please everyone. As I've gotten older, I've learned to accept that and take it with a pinch of salt. I also remind myself that there was a lot of negativity around X-Men, another movie I've been a part of, especially on the Internet from comic book aficionados. Nothing we did on that movie made them happy initially - and then by the end of the second movie they loved it. So we try to remain true to what we were trying to do.

Do you ever re-watch your Oscar speech?
I've watched it two times since that night and mainly the reason I watched it was that I was so out of my body that I didn't remember what I'd said. I felt I talked way too long and I wish I could have edited it. But I also felt it was a great moment for me in my life and I knew that it was about more than me. So I thought maybe it was OK the way it was.

Where do you keep the Oscar?
It's at home but he moves all around the house. Depending on my mood, some days he's on the kitchen table, some days he's in the bathroom, some days he's in the living room. I like to move him around. He's always near.

Gothika is out now.