Halle Berry Says ‘Catwoman’ Backlash Felt Worse Beacuse She’s Black: “I’ve fought as a Black woman my whole life”

Halle Berry is no stranger to superhero roles. The actress portrayed Storm for years, one of Marvel’s most popular mutants in the Fox X-Men franchise, but she also ventured into DC comics adaptations – notably in the role of Catwoman in a movie under the same name.

Catwoman is one of the most notable Batman supporting characters, so at the time, it seemed like a good idea to give the character a standalone movie, but the movie ended up being so bad it almost ruined Berry’s career.

The movie was released over 20 years ago, was widely criticized, and underperformed at the box office, earning $82 million against a $100 million budget. It received seven Golden Raspberry Award nominations and won four, including Worst Picture, Worst Actress (Halle Berry), Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay.

It still regularly resurfaces online on top lists related to the worst superhero movies of all time and it’s still a meme factory that keeps on giving.

In her recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, the actress admitted that the critics tried to break her 20 years ago when the movie was first released, and they are still trying to break her despite the younger audiences rediscovering the movie with new appreciation. Berry also admitted that the whole backlash felt much worse beacuse she is black and she had to fight her whole life due to being black:

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. 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.

Berry also discussed the Razzies, and how she basically panned the movie despite sort of liking it, she had to give off an aura that she wasn’t taking it all that seriously as well:

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! 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.

To be fair ‘Catwoman’ is an extremely bad movie and race likely had nothing to do with it or anything personal for that matter, it was just overall extremely bad and extremely overacted. But as Berry put it recently the critics told her the movie sucked balls, but the younger audiences are re-discovering the movie now after 20 years and they see some kind of a charm in it, just like fans recently started appreciating Star Wars prequel trilogy along with Hayden Christensen after hating on him for close to a decade.

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