From L: Kim Kardashian; Halle Berry; Ryan Murphy. Photo: Joy Malone/Getty; Matt Baron/BEI/Shutterstock; Taylor Hill/FilmMagic

Sometimes, projects don’t pan out the way one might expect — and that’s okay with Halle Berry.

Last month, Entertainment Weekly reported that the actress had exited a Ryan Murphy legal drama titled All’s Fair, which was also set to star Kim Kardashian and Glenn Close.

Berry, 57, addressed her departure in a conversation with Entertainment Tonight on Monday, Aug. 12, during the Los Angeles premiere of her new Netflix movie The Union, saying, “You know, things happen for a reason.”

“I would’ve loved to have been there with those ladies, [and] I know it’s gonna be great,” the Oscar winner continued. “[It’s] Ryan Murphy! I mean, you know, duh. But next time!”

According to EW, Berry was set to star in and produce All’s Fair, the TV project from Murphy, 58, that focused on an all-female law firm. Variety reported in July that her exit from the Hulu project was due to a scheduling conflict, citing sources.

Halle Berry in Los Angeles on Aug. 12, 2024.Phillip Faraone/Getty

For now, the actress is focused on The Union, her latest role that sees her star opposite Mark Wahlberg as Roxanne, the high-school sweetheart of Wahlberg’s Mike who comes back into his life unexpectedly 25 years later and recruits him for a high-stakes job.

Berry told PEOPLE exclusively at the premiere on Monday of working with the “genuine” Wahlberg, 53, “He means what he says and he says what he means, and he’s a friend to an actor.”

“He’s a great collaborator,” the Catwoman star continued. “He allowed me space to be me and bring what I needed to bring to it. But [we] have so much history — I’ve known him since the late ’80s.”

Berry also noted the “commonality” between herself and Wahlberg, explaining, “We had both started with meager beginnings.”

“We know what that is to come from that, and we appreciate where we are at this stage in our life and that we still get to do it on this high level, and I think that’s what connects us,” she said. “That’s what binds us as people.”

Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry in ‘The Union’.Laura Radford/Netflix

Berry told PEOPLE of her new action role, “I was a gymnast as a kid, so anytime I get to use my physicality in something and my athleticism, I love it.”

Added the Bruised actress and director, “I wanted to go to the Olympics as a kid, so now I missed that, but now I get to act out that childhood fantasy through film. I love it.”

Asked what advice she’d give her children — daughter Nahla, 16, and son Maceo-Robert, 10 — if they wanted to follow in her show-business footsteps, Berry said, “I would tell them, ‘Do it the way I did it.’ I had no nepotism. Nobody helped me. I had to learn from the ground up.”

“They would have to do it the same way,” she continued. “They would have to go pay their dues, learn a craft, work hard and make it on their own for themselves. And that way, it’s always theirs. Nobody takes it away. That’s what they would have to do.”