Halle Berry has admitted she knew Catwoman “wasn’t quite right” when she was making the infamous superhero film.
The 2004 flick was a critical and commercial flop when it was released, with Berry going on to win Worst Actress at the Golden Raspberry Awards, while the film itself won Worst Picture.
The Oscar-winner has now opened-up about the period around making Catwoman, explaining that it came about after a planned spin-off for her James Bond character Jinx was axed.
“It was very disappointing,” Berry told Variety of the Jinx film. “It was ahead of its time. Nobody was ready to sink that kind of money into a Black female action star. They just weren’t sure of its value. That’s where we were then.”
Of the decision to do Catwoman, she continued: “People said to me, ‘You can’t do that. You’ve just won the Oscar. Because I didn’t do Jinx, I thought, ‘This is a great chance for a woman of color to be a superhero. Why wouldn’t I try this?’”
However, she quickly noticed that the superhero film’s story “didn’t feel quite right”, notably the plot of Sharon Stone’s villain and her cosmetics empire.
“I remember having that argument: ‘Why can’t Catwoman save the world like Batman and Superman do? Why is she just saving women from a face cream that cracks their face off?’ But I was just the actor for hire. I wasn’t the director. I had very little say over that.”
Meanwhile, earlier this year Berry issued an apology for considering a role as a transgender man in an upcoming film.
“As a cisgender woman, I now understand that I should not have considered this role and that the transgender community should undeniably have the opportunity to tell their own stories,” she said.
Berry added: “I am grateful for the guidance and critical conversation over the past few days and I will continue to listen, educate and learn from this mistake. I vow to be an ally in using my voice to promote better representation on-screen, both in front of and behind the camera.”
