Halle Berry Channels ‘Catwoman’ In Topless Photoshoot With Rescue Cats
In commemoration of the 2004 film Catwoman, Halle Berry found a philanthropic way to honor her role as Patience Philips, while also keeping it spicy.
The Oscar-winner — who actually won zero positive awards for the comic book adaptation — shared a carousel of photos on Instagram, posing in just bikini bottoms, without a matching top, and surrounded by rescue cats.
“And STILL… meow!” captioned Berry on Tuesday (July 23). “It’s been 20 years today since I had the honor of bringing this iconic character to life. She will always be close to my heart and I will forever be Patience Phillips aka CATWOMAN!”
She added, “Thank you @missjee79! When these black beauties showed up in my yard searching for their mother, Jee helped us through the rescue process. Forever grateful!”
Halle Berry recently spoke with Entertainment Weekly in an oral history about Catwoman. She also touched on the lackluster response to the film, which earned her a Razzie amongst other “worst” awards.
Per the Box Office, the comic book movie wasn’t much of a success as it only grossed $82,078,046 worldwide and received a ton of negative feedback. Speaking of the film’s backlash, Berry admitted that she’s carried all of Catwoman‘s “negativity” and “failure” on her back, claiming critics have only put the weight on her.
“I felt like it was Halle Berry’s failure, but I didn’t make it alone,” she told the publication. “All these years, I’ve absolutely carried it. I didn’t love [the backlash]. Being a Black woman, I’m 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.”
Speaking to “fighting” her whole life as a Black woman and remaining resilient, she added, “It didn’t derail me. 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. 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,” she continued. “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.”
Catwoman premiered in theaters on July 23, 2003. The Pitof-directed film starred Berry as Patience Phillips: a cosmetics company employee who dies and is reborn as Catwoman. The 57-year-old admitted that upon receiving her script for the reinvented 1940 comic book character, she was “underwhelmed” by the storyline; which sees Catwoman investigating a deadly cosmetics line.
“I always thought the idea of Catwoman saving women from a face cream felt a bit soft,” she said. “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.”
According to Berry and the film’s producer Denise Di Novi, the negativity for the movie began when a photo leaked online revealing Berry’s costume ahead of the premiere. Reportedly, many comic book fans felt the look wasn’t accurate as the original suit covers the body from head to toe.
“That was the first thing that started the negativity,” said Di Novi to EW. “It was an early shot before we’d perfected it. It was so different than what people were used to in the other movie. A catsuit, by definition, everything is covered up. We thought it’d be cool to be more rock & roll and bare. Halle was famous for wearing a bikini in her Bond movie, and we were like, why not?”
“People had such a reaction to it, which is so ridiculous,” she added. “We had the famous Colleen Atwood helping us with just that costume. Halle had a lot of input. I still think it’s cool and a lot more modern!”
Berry chimed in, “Fans were upset about the suit. 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? The beauty was that it was better suited for my version of her, my body, who I was, and my sensibilities.”
Read the Catwoman 20th anniversary oral history on Entertainment Weekly in its entirety here.
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