Meet Cat Black of Catherine Black in Silverlake

Today we’d like to introduce you to Cat Black.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Cat. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Thanks for inviting me! I first got my start in Toronto. I had a brief claim to “fame” when I was five years old, booking two US National Commercials and some print, but we moved away from the city soon after that. When I was 16, I ran away from home to Toronto. When winter hit, I wound up at my grandparent’s house in the north end of Toronto. A month prior to moving in with my grandparents, I had auditioned for a production of Romeo and Juliet and gave them my grandparent’s phone number. When I finally called my grandparents months later, they were the ones to tell me I had booked the role of Juliet. Before production, I had purchased a copy of Year Of The King by Antony Sher, and it inspired me to work on Juliet in the same way he had with Richard III. This is the production that made me the artist I am today. Lewis Baumander was the director, and he was so important to me as an actor and artist. He really pushed me and brought out a performance in me that I didn’t know was possible. I loved every minute of it. I would show up at the theatre hours before to warm up and rehearse. I lived and breathed Juliet, and in each performance, I found new ways to explore and play. I remember stomping across the stage to yell at The Friar, and thinking to myself, “I want to do this forever!” After that play, I continued to study with Lewis in Toronto, and that’s how I began working in the vibrant Toronto theatre scene and Film/ TV industry. Eventually, this leads me to LA.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Absolutely NOT easy! More of a windy, broken, bumpy road, and sometimes off roading without a trail in sight. I definitely had a little beginner’s luck. I feel like the Universe really let me know that this was what I was supposed to do with my life so I’d never forget. In my early 20’s I did some incredible award-winning theatre and had a bunch of great roles in TV and film, as well as shadowing directors and learning all aspects of direction and editing. I was on a roll until I had a bad knee injury and couldn’t walk. My life literally came to a grinding halt. I needed invasive knee surgery but wasn’t strong enough for surgery, and needed physiotherapy to strengthen my leg first before I could even have an operation. This took up two years of my life right at the beginning of my career. I’m not going to lie, these were the hardest days of my life. I learned so much about letting go, how nothing is permanent, and I can’t control anything. In retrospect, this time made me a spiritual warrior. The surgery also triggered an autoimmune disease and set me on a path of healing. I changed everything about my lifestyle and learned to let go of anything that didn’t serve me. When I recovered, I did a few more guest-starring roles in TV and two beautiful plays. One play won 9 Dora awards (Canada’s Tony) and was remounted with an extended run and a full house every night. Everything was going great, but I wanted more. I was now auditioning for leading roles but it was constantly coming down to an actress in LA vs myself, and the LA actress would ultimately book the role. At some point, I got it in my head to move to LA.

This is really where all my work began. I painted a lot during the knee surgery days and had an art show with my large figurative oil paintings as a goodbye to Toronto. When I moved to LA, no one knew me or the work I had done and no one cared. I was surprised to learn that LA actors are the hardest working people you’ll ever meet. It forced me to step up my game. I started studying with various acting studios and landed at Stuart Rogers Studios. Stuart blew my process wide open with possibilities. I wrote my first film to direct and star in because I wasn’t getting auditions and hadn’t had an acting job in four years. I’m certain I’d never have made my own films if I stayed in Toronto because I would have been working and had no need to. I had to lose everything to find it all. My struggle became a huge part of who I am as an artist. I don’t ever regret the journey because I love the artist I’ve become as a result.

We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I’m a Canadian director-writer, actress, artist and acting coach in Los Angeles. I tackle a lot of feminist themes in my work and like to tell stories about people overcoming adversity. The main concepts that run through all of my art are empathy and how our unconscious drives lead characters towards some form of liberation from their suffering. I have several scripts currently in development, and just secured distribution for one of my projects. I can’t share those details just yet, but stay tuned!. I’ve studied various acting techniques in Toronto, Los Angeles and the UK. I have a passion for the craft of acting, actors and breaking down a script so each role best serves the story and authentically comes to life. It’s my mission to bring more freedom and discovery in performance, for myself and for the actors I teach and direct.

As an actor, I have performed in many award-winning theatre productions, but am most proud of starring as Anne Frank this past Jan-Feb 2020 in And Then They Came For Me with MainStreet Theatre. In Film/TV I’m best known for playing Vanden in American Psycho where I performed with Christian Bale and Reese Witherspoon, and starring with Crispin Glover in The Donner Party. I’ve starred in many Indie Features over the years and booked countless guest-starring roles, such as Odyssey 5 (SyFy), Blue Murder (GLOBAL TV/CTV), I Love Mummy (BBC/CTV) and Playing House (NBC/USA). Most recently, I had a supporting role in the feature film Debt Collectors (2020) with a wide VOD release in May, and recently shot a lead role in a comedy feature BitterSweet.

I’m a proud member of the Alliance of Women Directors. As a director-writer, my extensive practice as an actor and artist has rooted my artistic vision in filmmaking. Images I used to paint are now images I create on a film set. My first short film, the “sexy and surreal” De Puta Madre a Love Story that I wrote-directed-star in, won Best Actress, Best Director and Best Cinematography, along with Jury Awards and Special Mentions at multiple International film festivals. My second film “the sly dark horror-comedy” Girl Trip, also took home multiple awards. In 2019 I directed my first director-for-hire, Like Nothing Happened, which premiered at the 39th Minneapolis St. Paul IFF in May and can be viewed Live online September 18th 2020 at 2:30pm PST during the We Make Movies International Film Festival on Facebook Live, Twitch TV and YouTube Live. Watch it live with me!

I also love being an acting coach and watching actors grow and fulfill their artistic potential. I love figuring it out with them because there’s no one size fits all for every script and every actor. It all boils down to telling stories and serving the story written. I currently coach actors all over the world online, and have been coaching actors since my Toronto days. I also teach an ongoing Thursday night scene study class at About The Work acting studio in LA, and I just launched a YouTube channel called Act with Cat. I’m really excited to share tips and tricks on how to empower yourself as an actor each week on my channel. I show actors how to make their own content like I have, I share audition and acting tips and everything I’ve learned along the way. Just like my characters and stories, I want to empower the actor because so often actors feel disempowered. I love to inspire actors with innovative acting techniques, sustainable technical tips and tricks all with a caring and clear approach, encouraging actors to succeed and own their strengths as an artist.

What were you like growing up?
When I was growing up I was always dressing up and doing impersonations of family members or characters in movies and TV. I’d make up wacky characters and direct my siblings and friends to act out plays or be in “music videos” we all made together. I loved making people laugh. I knew all the words and songs to Annie and Wizard of Oz, and would act out the entire movie for anyone who would listen. Both of my grandmothers taught me how to draw and paint and I spent many days painting and sketching. We moved away from Toronto when I was about six which took me out of acting. I was then scouted for the Olympics as a gymnast and began training 6 hours a day, seven days a week. I loved the challenge and I loved how accomplished I felt after training, even after a full day at school and not getting home until after 11pm. I ate dinner alone and had to stay up very late to do my homework, but I felt so proud of myself. Being a gymnast gave me a solid work ethic that has served me as an artist. Once I start a project, I’m all in. If I started a painting and my friends called on me to play, I’d come to the door and tell them I couldn’t play until I finished my work. I’m still like this. My husband says when I’m working on a project, nothing else matters. I completely immerse myself in the world I’m creating, whether it’s acting or directing, and I was like that as a child as well. I worked hard and played hard. It’s all the same to me. If I can’t fully commit, I probably won’t do it. I was a bit of an adrenaline junkie growing up, probably because I was an athlete. I was always doing something physically challenging and I have the injuries to prove it. When I was very small, my father came home from work and the neighbors who were babysitting me didn’t know where I was. My dad found me barefoot several farms over in a field looking up at a farmer asking him what crops he was growing. I was very empathetic and social and talked to everyone. I had a great uncle who suffered from terrible PTSD from WW2 and I would just sit with him at family gatherings holding his hand because he seemed so sad. I was shy, but my curiosity overruled my shyness. I wrote to the Prime Minister asking him to save the environment, I donated to Greenpeace and threw out all my Coco Chanel perfume and posters when I found out she was a Nazi supporter. I also got my 4th-grade teacher fired because he was racist in class. I had zero tolerance for any social injustice and fought with anyone who said or did anything sexist or racist. I was always sweet and cheerful but had a strict moral code. In junior high, I petitioned for an all girls football team because I thought it was sexist that girls couldn’t play football. Several months later, there was an all-girls football league in Ontario. I was always friends with everyone and hung out with everybody in school. I could float from clique to clique not being part of any but welcomed by all. I was very athletic but art ultimately won my heart. I was never competitive enough as an athlete. My competitiveness was more with myself, which is basically being an artist. I loved growing up in beautiful Ontario and spending summers outdoors swimming in great lakes, walking across Lake Huron because it was so shallow, hiking and exploring the Grey Bruce Peninsula. We were out on the water all day and had fires at night. Those days feel like home to me. In the winters, I skied, snowmobiled and drank hot chocolate hiding inside from the snow, writing, dreaming and painting. I always loved the winters, and somehow forget how brutally cold it can be. My grandparents on both sides were also very important to me growing up. They introduced me to a world of theatre, opera and art. They were nonjudgmental and supported artists from less privileged upbringings to achieve their dreams. They were an inspiration to me.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://catherineblack.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dubhcat/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/catherineblackofficial
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/dubhcat
• Other: http://actwithcat.com/

Image Credit:
• Benevolence 3 oil on wood with Catherine Black • Screengrab from Playing House with Catherine Black and Keegan Michael-Key • Screengrab of Catherine Black in De Puta Madre a Love Story • BTS of Catherine Black in And Then They Came For Me with MainStreet Theatre • BTS of Catherine Black directing Mattew Tully Brown in Girl Trip
• Kremer Johnson Photography • Girl Trip poster

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