Halle Berry has reflected on making her notorious flop Catwoman 20 years ago, revealing that she neither regrets making the film nor collecting her Razzie in person.
That is despite her describing it as ‘a piece of s**t’ film.
The actress, now 57, was ‘honoured’ at the annual ‘anti-Oscars’ show, the Golden Raspberry Awards, which celebrate the worst movies of the year the night before the Academy Awards, with the worst actress gong.
In a rare move, Berry – who was busy bearing the Olympic torch ahead of the Paris 2024 Games in Cannes last month – gamely went along to the ceremony herself to graciously pick up her Razzie in 2005, even taking along her best actress Oscar for 2001’s Monster’s Ball for the evening.
And it’s something she’s still glad she did.
‘I’d written [my 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 that I didn’t take it that seriously,’ the star told Entertainment Weekly in an anniversary piece for the movie.
‘You can never take away my Oscar, no matter how bad you bash me! If you say I earned this, all right, I’ll take this, too. You accept the wonderful things people say, and accept when they don’t say wonderful things.’
Catwoman, which also starred Sharon Stone and Benjamin Bratt, was mauled by critics at the time, contributing to its woefully low critics’ rating of 8% on Rotten Tomatoes.
It also bombed at the box office where it failed to make back its production budget costs of $100m – clawing in just $82.4m worldwide.
Total Film branded the movie ‘as satisfying as a bowl of sour milk’, while People Magazine argued: ‘If cats, those snootiest of creatures, went to the movies, they would be appalled and mortified. What did they ever do to deserve having their good name and mannerisms dragged through such dingbat fluff as this?’
It has, in recent years though, managed to bounce back among a new generation of fans.
‘No, I don’t have to give this back. It’s got my name on it,’ Berry said of her Oscar as she held her latest award in her other hand on the night of the Razzies, playing up her shocked and excited reaction.
‘I’ve got so many people to thank, ‘cos you don’t win a Razzie without a lot of help from a lot of people, so please indulge me,’ she added, before firing tongue-in-cheek shots at Warner Bros. for raining on her post-Oscar parade.
‘Thank you for putting me in a piece of s**t, God-awful movie. It was just what my career needed, you know? I was at the top, and Catwoman just plummeted me to the bottom! Love it,’ the actress announced.
Berry has now confirmed that Warner Bros was aware that she would be attending and making a speech, adding to EW: ‘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**t on it because they s**t on it! I tried to be one of them.’
The Die Another Day star also shared that she had ‘no negative feelings’ towards Catwoman as she appreciated and even ‘marvelled’ at the fact that it was made and that she got to see ‘my version of Catwoman’.
Berry was the first Black woman to lead her own DC Comics movie, with mononymous director Pitof dubbing it ‘ahead of its time’, claiming audiences ‘weren’t ready for that kind of movie’ back then.
It took another 13 years before a female actor had success as a superhero in her own DC or Marvel movie, with Gal Gadot in 2017’s Wonder Woman.
‘I knew how much hard work went into it, not only on my part but on everybody’s part. You never set out to make something critics decide to pan,’ Catwoman’s leading lady added.
Despite Netflix axing her sci-fi thriller The Mothership after filming wrapped following several setbacks earlier this year, Berry’s busy with a slate of upcoming releases, including horror Never Let Go and Maude v Maude with Angelina Jolie, which has been described as a mix of Mr & Mrs Smith and Mission: Impossible.
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