10 More Actors Who SAVED Their Careers By Turning Down Movie Roles

Several prominent actresses were in contention to play Catwoman in the 2004 solo movie, with the most famous name undeniably being Nicole Kidman.

After Warner Bros.' first choice, Ashley Judd, dropped out, the studio approached Kidman, who also ended up turning the part down, at which point the studio was finally successful with their third pick, Halle Berry.

Berry was fresh off an historic Best Actress Oscar win for her work on Monster's Ball, and on paper the feline superhero certainly seemed like a firm fit for the actress' talents.

And yet, Catwoman was enough of a critical and commercial dud that it not only won Berry the 2005 Razzie for Worst Actress - which she gamely accepted in-person - but is widely accepted to have impacted the caliber of roles she was subsequently offered.

For the 20 years since, Berry's career remains one of the most maddening examples of a post-Oscar slump, her filmography littered with critical and box office flops, and few hit projects to speak of.

Kidman, conversely, avoided becoming poison to Hollywood executives by swearing off Catwoman, having instead spent the last two decades working with a bevy of auteur filmmakers - including Jonathan Glazer, George Miller, Noah Baumbach, Baz Luhrmann, Lee Daniels, Park Chan-wook, Werner Herzog, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Robert Eggers.

While Berry has largely been confined to low-brow genre films despite her considerable talent, Kidman has remained one of the most popular actresses of her generation, and even landed three additional Oscar nominations between 2011 and 2022.