Halle Berry Once Felt ‘Catwoman’ Was Appreciated More Than ‘Monster’s Ball’
Halle Berry has always had mixed feelings about her film Catwoman. On the one hand, the movie was both a critical and box-office disappointment. On the other, it netted Berry a huge payday and is still one of her most talked-about films. So much so, that Berry felt it was more appreciated than her Oscar-winning role in Monster’s Ball in one regard.
Halle Berry once revealed the different reactions she got between ‘Monster’s Ball’ and ‘Catwoman’
Monster’s Ball and Catwoman might seem like two different tiers of movies. The former won Berry her first historic, yet heartbreaking, Oscar win and showcased what’s highly regarded as one of her finest performances. Catwoman might be the exact opposite of that. The feature won Berry a Golden Raspberry award, which she showed up to its ceremony to collect in good spirits. Even Berry once conceded that the movie’s story didn’t live up to its potential.
“I had such high hopes for that movie,” Berry said in an interview with Vogue. “It seemed like a good idea. Men have done it. But our story just wasn’t good enough.”
However, Berry confided that Catwoman has found a new audience over the years who might appreciate the movie more than their prior generation. So much so that, in some instances, Catwoman seems more appreciated than Monster’s Ball.
“But I will tell you one thing that has helped me deal with the failure of that: Critics bashed it, but people come up to me now and either they say, ‘I loved you in the movie B.A.P.S,’ which is a comedy that I did, or they say, ‘I don’t care what anybody says, I liked Catwoman.’ Nobody ever says, ‘I really loved Monster’s Ball.’ Nobody. No. Body. Nobody,” she said.
What Halle Berry wishes she could change about ‘Catwoman’
With her newfound experience as a filmmaker, Berry felt she had a good idea of how to fix Catwoman if she could go back in time. One of the changes she’d make to the critically panned feature would be to raise the stakes higher than they were in the original film.
“I would have Catwoman saving the world like most male superheroes do, and not just saving women from their faces cracking off,” she once said in an interview with Jake Hamilton. “I would make the stakes a lot higher, and I think make it more inclusive of both men and women.”
It seemed Catwoman’s lack of stakes was a concern that bothered her when she did the first movie. However, Berry wasn’t as confident as she was in her more mature years to voice her opinion.
“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,” she once told Entertainment Weekly.
Berry could also barely live with the film’s intense training regimen. However, despite the movie’s intensity and flaws, she clarified she had a good time shooting the project.
“Things went smoothly [for me],” she said. “It was a great shoot, and I had the time of my life. I worked my ass off to embody a cat in so many ways, psychologically and physically. I never thought it went awry; I just thought that maybe it wouldn’t feel as big as other movies because the plot stakes aren’t as high.”
