Gordon Jackson
A new Entertainment Weekly feature looks back at Halle Berry’s infamous Catwoman on its 20th anniversary, shedding light on the project’s troubled production history while also celebrating its unlikely critical reappraisal. The article is highly recommended reading, as it’s full of stellar quotes from director Pitof, producer Denise Di Novi, screenwriter John Brancato, and Halle Berry, herself.
No matter how you may feel about the movie, Berry gushed about her experience working on it, stating it permanently altered her into real-life cat person. “I became a cat lover because of it. I just rescued four kitties I found in my yard three weeks ago,” she said. “I’m a Catwoman through and through because of that experience and those relationships. That experience changed me.”
Berry revealed Warner Bros. gifted her with a cat for inspiration before filming. “They gave me a cat early on because I didn’t have one,” she said. “His name was Playdough. I watched, studied, and learned how cats think. I didn’t have the responsibility of children and family; I was just a woman alone with a lot of idle time to focus on this. I was full-on cat, all the time. I’d crawl around my house, trying to jump on my counters, thinking, If I were a cat, how would I get up there? I was in it 24/7.”
While the image of Berry leaping from her own countertops is amusing, Gotham‘s two Catwoman actresses Lili Simmons and Camren Bocondova believe it payed off. “Halle’s performance is iconic,” Simmons said. “When you think of Catwoman, you think of her; her fluidity in movement while nailing every scene; effortlessly sexy, powerful, and grounded.”
Bicondovca echoed her sentiment, adding, “Halle inspired me as an actress throughout those five years [on Gotham] and still does! Halle is a powerhouse with crazy athleticism, versatility, and depth. Her work is reflective of her consistent effort to be curious and knowledgeable about her characters. She showed that in her rendition of Catwoman and is still doing it 20 years later.”
Praise for Catwoman performances tends not to include Berry’s turn—the go-to names are usually Julie Newmar, Michelle Pfieffer, and Eartha Kitt—so their enthusiasm is contagious. That Berry made sure to emphasize Catwoman’s feline aspects comes in stark contrast to some of the character’s more recent portrayals from Anne Hathaway and Zoe Kravitz (the former is never seen with a cat; the latter is obviously uncomfortable holding one).
If that wasn’t enough, the article also contains some interesting notes about the studio, who were positive about the film’s bizarre, overarching threat—a skin-dissolving face cream cultivated from bubonic plague cultures—as long as the finished film contained no plague-carrying rats. As Brancato notes, “At the time, Botox was relatively new, so the idea of a cosmetic based on the bubonic plague seemed like a funny idea … the power that controlled the movie was studio executives. Everything came from them—specifically Jeff Robinov, who was [the motion picture head at] Warner Bros. After we’d done a draft, he put everything on index cards, called us to his office, and on a giant whiteboard, rearranged the script. ‘Move this here, get rid of this idea of rats—we don’t like rats—get rid of her internal process of becoming a cat.’ He tossed everything I thought was good in our earlier work. We had an oddly cobbled-together version of the script.”
The article additionally confirms Brancato and co-writer Michael Ferris were fired from the project “twice,” prompting extensive re-writes from Bill & Ted co-creator Ed Solomon. According to Brancato, “They’d been through so many writers and versions. There was exhaustion at the studio. You get punch-drunk. We’d come up with ideas, and they’d say, ‘No, we tried that in drafts 7 and 11.’ Well, what can we do? It was an odd process. Trying to make something that had some integrity that made sense finally seemed impossible, given the realities of what this became. It was a strange, out-of-control machine.”
As the piece continues, Di Novi goes on to discuss Berry’s controversial Catwoman costume, suggesting most of the film’s backlash came from its… minimalist design. “A a catsuit, by definition, everything is covered up,” she said. “We thought it’d be cool to be more rock n’ roll and bare. Halle was famous for wearing a bikini in her Bond movie, and we were like, why not?” Berry confirms she was also positive about the costume, adding, “It was something different, but in our minds, why keep remaking Catwoman if you’re not going to take risks and bring something different to it?”
Why indeed? Is it time Catwoman finally got its due, or do you believe it was truly deserving of its damning Razzie award win, which as the article details, was accepted by Berry in person? Not matter your belief on the matter, Berry concluded, “You can never take away my Oscar, no matter how bad you bash me! If you say I earned it, I’ll take this, too.” They do say cats always land on their feet.
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