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As Catwoman turns 20 next week, Halle Berry is looking back at the film’s disastrous commercial and critical performance and talking about how she didn’t quite appreciate the backlash being placed entirely at her door.
In an interview to mark the 20th anniversary, the Die Another Day star opened up about how she felt carrying the negative reactions alone.
“I did not love it. Being a Black woman, I am used to carrying negativity on my back, fighting, being a fish swimming upstream by myself. I’m used to defying stereotypes and making a way out of no way,” she told Entertainment Weekly.
“I didn’t want to be casual about it, but I went and collected that Razzie, laughed at myself, and kept it moving.
“It didn’t derail me because I’ve fought as a Black woman my whole life. A little bad publicity about a movie? I didn’t love it, but it wasn’t going to stop my world or derail me from doing what I love to do.
“Growing up as a Black woman, that’s two strikes against you. There’s an innate resilience. I hated that it got all put on me, and I hate that, to this day, it’s my failure. I know I can carry it.
“I still have a career 20 years later. It’s just part of my story. That’s okay, and I’ve carried other failures and successes. People have opinions, and sometimes they’re louder than others. You just have to keep moving.”
She described accepting her trophy at the Razzies, an iconic moment where she showed up with her Best Actress Oscar for 2001’s Monster’s Ball.
“The studio knew what I was going to do at the Razzies. I told them I wanted to take the piss out of it and laugh at it. I don’t think it’s a God-awful film, but I was at the Razzies, so I had to do what they do; I s*** on it because they s***on it!
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“I wrote [that speech] within an inch of my life. I put a lot of thought into how I could do it in a fun way and let everyone know I didn’t take it that seriously. 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.”
Catwoman released on 23 July 2004 to overwhelmingly bad reviews, with both critics and fans calling it one of the worst comic book films ever made.
The film was directed by Pitof, written by John Brancato, and starred Berry as Patience Phillips, a woman who develops cat-like powers.
It also had Sharon Stone as Laurel Hedare, owner of a company making a beauty product that claims to reverse the effects of ageing, but with dangerous side effects.
Pitof and Brancato have talked about how their initial drafts focused on reinventing Catwoman’s character and playing with the idea of femininity and tying it with women always being forced to look a certain way. Berry mentioned how that concept interested her, but she ultimately found the final script, which went through a series of changes with studio heads, extremely underwhelming.
“Men, historically, get to have big franchises that revolve around them. This was an opportunity to be forward-thinking, pushing that envelope for women. Why can’t we have our own superhero movie that revolves around us and our universe?” she said of Warner Bros Pictures hesitation over the film.
“I always thought the idea of Catwoman saving women from a face cream felt a bit soft. All the other superheroes save the world; they don’t just save women from cracked faces. I always knew that was a soft superhero plight, but at that time in my career, I didn’t have the agency I have today or belief that I could challenge that, so I went along with it.”
The film, made on a $100m budget, ended up making $82.4m worldwide and holds an 8 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
In 2021, an X user shared a Catwoman clip with the post: “When I first saw this when I was a child I really thought this was the best movie in the world so imagine my shock when I grew up and found out everyone hated it???”
Berry then retweeted the post with a crying-laughing emoji and the words: “Imagine mine.”
