There was no sense in Halle Berry having to research the world of online chatting when she signed up to do the new thriller "Perfect Stranger." She had already been there and done that -- and knew that she didn't want to go back there again.

"I've gone on some chat rooms, anonymously -- I've done the creepy thing of pretending that I'm somebody else," Berry revealed with an almost embarrassed laugh in a recent @ The Movies interview. "I did it mainly out of curiosity just to see if I could have a normal conversation without having to be me and to see if I could communicate with people and talk in a real way."

But then, Berry discovered, that two wrongs didn't make a right.

"I quickly realized that these people are who they say they are either because they sometimes say such heinously negative things," Berry said. "When you try to figure out what they look like and go, 'Send a picture so I can see what you look like,' nobody wants to do it because nobody wants to disclose who they really are."

"They have all this power to say all this stuff they say because they know they don't have to take responsibility for saying it," Berry added. "I just realized, 'This is really creepy. I don't think I want to do this.'"

The "creepy" factor, of course, doesn't prevent Berry from chatting with her friends, but still and all, she said the dynamic of their conversations definitely changes when communicating online.

"This happens a lot with my Blackberry -- I talk to everybody now on my Blackberry. People say things in the way that they could never say if they had you on the phone, let alone in person," Berry said. "It's easier to write things that you would never say or ask questions that you would never ask when you're typing it."

'Perfect' Deception

Online chatting is the means of deception used in "Perfect Stranger," where investigative journalist Rowena Price (Berry) and her techno-savvy associate Miles (Giovanni Ribisi) use to try to connect a womanizing advertising executive Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis) to the brutal murder of her childhood friend.

Rowena also poses as a temp in Hill's office, which puts her in direct contact with the mysterious executive. But as she gets closer to Hill, the more intense her relationships with the people closest to her become -- revealing that not everything is as it seems.

The film opens Friday in theaters nationwide.

The complexity of the characters in "Perfect Stranger," especially Rowena's, was one of the main things that drew the Oscar-winning actress to the project. It's a role that allows her to play a wide variety of emotions.

"I'm always attracted to characters that are vulnerable and a little bit damaged but have this insatiable will to survive so they can get their power back," Berry said. "I think that makes for these kinds of characters that I seem to be attracted to."

The great thing about the movie is not only is it an intense thriller, it has some deep twists and turns that will likely blindside you by the time the last reel unspools. Recalling her first read-through of the script, Berry counted herself among those who didn't see the end coming.

"All I was told about the role was that it was a great character for a woman and that it's got a shocking ending," Berry said. "I had no idea how it was going to end. I was fooled along the way. I thought I knew and could figure it out, and I just had no idea what was coming. Then I said, 'Let me read this again to see if I can see how it could be.' With the second read, I was able to see it."

But, Berry pointed out, the words wouldn't have had nearly as much meaning if weren't for the deft direction of James Foley ("At Close Range," "Glengarry Glen Ross").

"James Foley was passionate about these people. He loved all of these characters," Berry enthused. "He loved that they were completely flawed and all damaged and that they all had secrets. They walked on both sides of the ethical line, and he was so intrigued by these characters that the passion spread to us. He created so much momentum for us."

In fact, Foley created so much momentum for Berry, 40, that she arguably delivers one of the gutsiest performances of her career. Berry's Rowena is smart, sexy, tough and vulnerable all at the same time and takes the screen by storm -- no "X-Men" movie pun intended.

Plus, we get to hear Berry say with conviction words that we don't get that often in her cache of movie performances: F-bombs. And does Berry drop those F-bombs with conviction.

"You can tell I use those words, can't you?" Berry asked with a diabolical laugh.

Better than anything, Berry said, she's glad that she's playing a character in the type of the movie genre she digs.

"The real tee-hee for me is that these are the kinds of movies that I like to see -- I like to go on a date to see this type of movie," said Berry, who was just honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame last week. "This is the type of movie I choose first. Whenever these kind of movies come out, I'm there on the opening weekend."