Why is Hollywood really interested in cats right now?

Cats, call your agents. Top creators are increasingly giving hard-to-train pets dramatic roles in live-action projects.

In Steven Zaillian’s acclaimed Netflix limited series Ripley, a Maine Coon named Lucio was dubbed the “main character.” At the upcoming Paramount a A Quiet Place: Day One, Lupita Nyong’o plays a woman struggling to escape an alien invasion with her official cat, Frodo. Last fall, Disney Wonders He stars as a deadly ginger cat with superpowers. In Matthew Vaughn’s spy comedy Argylewhich has just begun streaming on Apple TV+, Bryce Dallas Howard is on the run from killers with her Scottish friend Fold Alfie.

This line is unusual, perhaps unprecedented. Dogs get lead roles in live-action movies all the time. Cats get lead roles in Lusty Movies all the time. But cats in live events are a whole other ball of yarn. Sometimes, a film puts a cat front and center (such as the 1965 Disney film). That darn cat and the Coen brothers’ 2013 drama Inside Llewyn DavyQ), but it is rare. This is partly because cats have long had a reputation for contaminating footage and testing even the most patient filmmakers (a bad reputation that is perhaps unfair, as we’ll explain later). So cats were treated largely like props rather than characters; It was carried over to short appearances for a specific effect – to intimidate, to get a laugh, or as an accessory to a character. When the hero is called to work, his cat is left on the couch. Until now.

In an early draft of ArgyleVaughn says novelist Ellie (Howard) also left her cat at home before embarking on an adventure with super-spy Aidan (Sam Rockwell). “Then I watched a Taylor Swift documentary where her cat was in a cat box and I remember thinking it was a crazy image,” Vonn recalls. “I thought it would be great for the three of them to go on an adventure together. I was nervous about it being a cat, because cats aren’t exactly the most trainable animals. However, by the time the film was released, Aflie was front and center in the marketing campaign.”

Zaillian was also wary of giving a cat such an important role in his adaptation The Talented Mr. Ripley. “I wrote the cat in the scripts, and I did it with some trepidation,” says the Oscar winner, who recast the role of Lucio twice before finding the imposing king who looks like a ruler. “I had the idea that the only witnesses to Tom’s crimes were animals who couldn’t testify and people who might not feel comfortable testifying. The cat, of course, was difficult. Owners bring cats into the office and think you want them to do tricks. But what we wanted was He is a cat that can be calm and comfortable around people and cameras.

And in the next A quiet place Prequel, writer-director Michael Sarnoski (who previously directed Nicolas Cage’s animal-focused film) pig) Likewise he gave the cat a big role. The feline wrangler in the film, Joe Vaughan (who also worked on… Wonders), He says First day It may be the best cat performance I’ve ever seen in a movie due to Frodo’s relationship with the human characters in the story as well as some exciting action scenes.

But what is driving this sudden increase in cat representation?

Although there is no single, clear cause, there are many possible factors at play.

First, cats are arguably in the zeitgeist at the moment, for whatever reason such things rule. Vaughn mentioned Swift who appeared on the cover of a magazine time Magazine in December as “Person of the Year” with her cat Benjamin Button. And a video game about a cat, RecklessIt became one of the most exciting titles of the past year, and is being made into a feature film.

Another factor may be that Instagram and TikTok have become somewhat useful brand ambassadors for these species, with cat videos promoting a wide range of feline expressions (one such cat video inspired Vaughn to add a scene to Argyle Where Alfie attacks Bryan Cranston). And while cats have a reputation for always seeming aloof and unemotional, a recent study found that they actually have 276 distinct facial expressions (can Vin Diesel say the same thing?).

“Cats are more expressive than people tend to give them credit for, and I learned that in large part while looking through the lens when making (Argyle“,” Vaughn says. “There are moments when people say, ‘Well, that shot is clearly CG and it looks fake,’ and I say, ‘No, no, that was TRUE.’ I was amazed at how agitated the cat was. He adds that CG was used when the shot was impossible. “For example, we obviously can’t throw a cat off a building.”

And here’s a third factor: CNC animation has become affordable and convincing enough to depict more naturalistic pets. This technology can enhance a cat’s performance during still scenes, or completely animate the cat during action scenes (see last year’s Netflix drama). The fall of the House of Usherwhich took the representation of a cat from hell in the episode “The Black Cat” to a level beyond what was possible in the episode “The Black Cat.” Animal Cemetery the movies).

“It’s so easy now to do whatever you want with a cat or a dog, because it can be done seamlessly with a computer and no one will ever know,” Zaillian points out (although in Ripley(The director got everything he needed from King without the CG).

But even with digital assistance, working with cats can be like herding cats. One cut scene in game of thrones The blockbuster became one of the most difficult epics ever produced by HBO (“This cat won’t do anything,” co-executive producer Brian Cogman said in the book). Fire cannot kill a dragon, “We never got the shot”). While the first cat Vaughn rented was abandoned because he found its behavior a little creepy (“I love dogs,” he admits), Vaughn had better luck choosing his daughters cat, Chip, but at some point the cat escaped from the set that was “on The middle of nowhere” and — as he pointed out to one reporter during the film’s press tour — “everyone was scared.” Outside.”

All of this brings us to the fourth and final reason cats may be getting more screen time: improved training. Professional cat training for movies has evolved dramatically in recent years, says cat trainer Vaughan (not to be confused with professional cat training for movies). Argyle Director Vaughn). Vaughan typically spends 12 to 14 weeks preparing a cat for a movie, and always hires two very similar-looking cats for a role (in case one cat isn’t in the mood to film a scene).

“Training cats is difficult,” she says. “But once they’re in training mode and working, once they get the concept, it actually becomes easier and easier and easier. I think a lot of (cats’ reputation) probably comes from people who show up with cats on set that aren’t necessarily trained, so people They had some bad experiences.

One common mistake, she says, is when filmmakers put an unprepared cat on set and start trying to film almost immediately. About Matt Reeves BatmanThere’s a scene where Selina Kyle (Zoe Kravitz) returns to her apartment and several cats are wandering around. Vaughan had the cats spend time in the apartment for a week before filming. “We got them used to the whole environment, so when it came time (to shoot), they were so comfortable that I didn’t even have to be in sight,” she said.

“The biggest mistake people make is assuming that cats can’t do[movies],” Vaughan adds. “Everyone does things with their dog. People generally don’t do much with their cats, so most people say: ‘My cat would never do that’ – that’s their assumption because they’re basing it on their own experiences. So they assume that no cat would do that.”

Cat metaphors in the film

For decades, cats have been used in films mostly to briefly fulfill a few tropes:

Jump scare the cats: This happens in horror movies when cats jump out during a tense scene, startling the nervous heroes and the audience, right before the killer makes his move. The trope may have originated in 1977 alienwith Jonesy bringing his orange cat energy to several scenes in Ridley Scott’s horror masterpiece, and Sigourney Weaver becoming the mother of the original evil cat, risking her life to save Jonesy at the film’s climax (in the sequel, Alienswriter-director James Cameron sidelined Jonesy with the line: “And you, you little fool, are going to stay here.”

Solitary cats Appendix: Pet cats are often shown briefly to convey someone who lives a solitary life (as if living alone with a cat is a bad thing). Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s It was even explained: “I’m like Cat here, a nameless fool. We belong to no one, and no one belongs to us.” In fact, cat owners are only 3% more likely to be single than dog owners, so this photo The stereotype isn’t really true.The other part of this trope is that loner cat owners tend to be female while dog owners are male – a stereotype that still exists in movies today (is John Wick Did it work as well with the cat? Discusses the). There’s a bit of statistical reality behind it — 64 percent of cat owners are female. But 60 percent of dog owners are also female. So one could say that overall pet owners are more likely to be female, and women are almost as likely to be cat owners as dog owners.

Satanic cats: These tend to be the cats’ biggest roles because they are the villains who drive the action; An idea dating back to the witch scares of the 16th century. Filmmakers also tend to be less concerned about killing a cat than a dog (“Never kill a dog” is a hackneyed rule of screenwriting, and it says nothing about cats).