I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with the good people over at Comic Book and Movie Reviews to talk about Comics, Theatre, and of course Catwoman and Cat-Tales.  I'll be reproducing some snippets here as time allows.

CBMR: Apart from the way she looks, what else would you say attracts you to Catwoman as a character?

This is probably my favorite of the questions I’m asked on a regular basis. The problem is that my answer changes every time I answer it. Cats are funny that way. But there are three elements that are all connected: Fun, Confidence, and Life.

I already talked a little bit about the ‘fun of being bad’, and there’s a sexual element to that too. You know how you’ll have a period of these absurdly deadly sex symbols like the Theda Bara Cleopatra, Salome, and so on -- and later in the 40's, you've got all the femme fatales of film noir. In each case, immediately after those periods, a Marilyn Monroe or a Mae West would emerge -- almost always in comedies -- with this subtext of: Wait a minute, sex is fun. What’s with all the scowling and death? And it’s such a breath of fresh air! Those are the ones that wind up defining the era. A generation later, two generations, ten, they’re the ones that stick. And that’s Selina -- that should be Selina, when she’s presented properly.

Another aspect that is so important, is that strength that comes from real confidence. Not the pretend kind that’s overcompensating for insecurity, but the kind of woman who knows who she is and owns who she is. And that’s who she’s going to be -- 100%. If you don’t like it, you better go somewhere else and find what you like, because she’s not going to tone it down or limit herself to suit your little idea of what she should to be.

And finally, there is a quality that the Broadway choreographer Bob Fosse called ‘Joy’ and I call ‘Extra life,’ and it’s one of those things that is very hard to describe but you know it when you’re in the presence of it. There are people who seem to be more alive than the rest of us. There is an intensity in their love and their hate. There is an electricity that crackles in the air around them when they do something they’re passionate about -- good or bad passion --  they can love it or hate it -- and that love or hate has a radius. It’s contagious. And I’m not talking about ‘drama queens’ -- it’s not something they say or do -- it’s not how they carry on -- it’s what they are. It’s something they carry inside them.

So that’s Selina: Fun, Confidence, Life. Now put it next to Bruce. Because that’s where the notes become music. There’s what she is, and then there is her effect on him.

Insert that vibrant, impulsive, mischievous, intensity and femininity into Bruce Wayne’s equally intense but clamped down, controlled and uber-masculine world, you have twelve tones that will produce an infinite variety of symphonies.

An excerpt from Catwoman: Cat-Tales - Say Hello to the Theater of Comic Books | Comic Book and Movie Reviews