Discover 13 shocking behind-the-scenes facts about Michelle Pfeiffer’s iconic Catwoman costume — from the painful design process to the secrets behind its unforgettable look. The Catwoman costume in Batman Returns is one of the most unforgettable looks in movie history — sleek, dangerous, and utterly iconic. But behind the shiny latex and whip-cracking confidence lies a story filled with discomfort, ingenuity, and shocking design secrets. From the painstaking process of squeezing into the skintight suit to the surprising materials used to create its glossy finish, here are 13 fascinating facts that reveal just how far the filmmakers went to bring Gotham’s most seductive antihero to life.

1. Pfeiffer Couldn’t Breathe

Michelle Pfeiffer claims that the crew had to help her into the outfit after covering her entire body with baby powder. The latex was vacuum-sealed to her body after it was on, making breathing practically impossible. The full face mask and tight corset worn for her role as Catwoman severely restricted her breathing and vocal cords. ‘It would literally just start to squeeze my skin,” she said. “I was only allowed to wear it for so many hours. I thought to myself: ‘I can’t move, I can’t breathe, I can’t think. I’m unhappy. I can’t act.’’ She was miserable, but the role fulfilled a childhood dream.

2. She Dreamed Of Becoming Catwoman

Michelle Pfeiffer said about her character, “As a young girl, I was completely obsessed with Catwoman.” Pfeiffer revealed in a 2017 interview. “When I heard that Tim Burton was making the film and Catwoman had already been cast, I was devastated. At the time, it was Annette Bening. Then she became pregnant. The rest is history.” When Pfeiffer was 10 years old, Catwoman would have been on the 1960s Batman show, played by Eartha Kitt. She also might have seen Catwoman in the animated The Adventures of Batman cartoon at the time. There’s no telling exactly which role inspired her, but it clearly had an impact.

3. They Didn’t Have to Redesign the Costume

The iconic 1992 Catwoman screen costume was a joint effort between Mary Vogt and Bob Ringwood, who worked on the first Batman film. Ringwood’s previous work includes creating the stunning stillsuits for David Lynch’s 1984 film Dune. Vogt’s other contributions to film include her work on Men in Black and Hocus Pocus. The two had already designed and constructed the Catwoman costume for Bening. Would the two have to redesign a whole new costume for Pfeiffer? Thankfully, Annette Bening and Michelle Pfeiffer are similar in height, weight, and body type. They’re both 5’6 (1.7 m) and weighed about 120 lbs (54 kg) at the time. Pfeiffer has a 32B (70B EU) bra size, while Benning wears a size 36B (80B EU). So, instead of creating a brand-new costume for her, the designers made the necessary adjustments to the pre-existing one when she took over.

4. The Mask Choked Her

Michelle Pfeiffer’s Batman Returns memories include the Catwoman mask constantly “choking” her and “smashing” her face “flat like a pug. ” The catsuit was so tight on her that she often had trouble hearing her own voice. Tim Burton had to tell her to lower her voice because she would often shout her dialogue instead of just saying it.

5. Pfeiffer Was Covered in Goo

Ringwood revealed that the costume itself was made of latex rubber and not leather. So the suit had to be covered with wet silicone for each shot. “We knew we wanted it to be black and sexy and tight and shiny,” Mary Vogt said. “Latex is as black and sexy and tight as you can get.” But it didn’t have the look of leather that the designers wanted. So they decided to brush her in thick liquid silicon. “After she had the costume on, we painted the silicon on her with big sponge brushes,” she said. “So she’s dripping all over the place. But silicon, because it’s so shiny, when it was lit, all you saw was the shine. And since she was moving around at night, it looked really fluid. ” So Pfeiffer was always wet and tacky since the crew was always covering the outfit with the silicon ooze that gave it its recognizable sheen. However, that’s not the only thing she was covered with.

6. She Was Covered in Tuna

There’s a scene in the movie when Selina gets pushed out of a window and falls into an alley. She’s swarmed by cats before she wakes up. How do you train cats to follow commands? Food, of course. In order to get the cats to surround Selina when she’s knocked out, the filmmakers put tuna on a dummy version of Selina and on Selina’s suit. The smell was so strong that it followed her home. “There’s one scene in the film where cats are crawling all over me,” she later said. “And I had like a strong odour by the end of the day. So I took a shower at work — washed myself, my clothes — then went home and took another bath. When I got into bed, my cat Tracy (silly name, but it once had a companion called Spencer) went crazy, baring her fangs. I thought she’d attack me!’

7. She Couldn’t Use the Bathroom

Since fashion often requires discomfort, the suit’s designers didn’t include a way for her to use the bathroom. So every time she had to go “number one,” the shoot had to be stopped, and a small army had to help her take the costume off and back on. Eventually, Michelle Pfeiffer complained enough that they modified the suit with a hidden zipper so she didn’t need to take a pit crew to the bathroom every time she had to pee.

8. She Couldn’t Walk in the Heels

Catwoman’s iconic knee-high black leather boots feature high stiletto heels, pointed toes, high soles, and exposed stitching. The boots were nominated for several awards, including a Saturn Award for their costume design. But Pfeiffer said the boots were hard to walk in. “My first week was like this, my boots weren’t right and I was I couldn’t walk in them because I kept tilting forward,” she told Entertainment Tonight. But she wasn’t the only one with a problem. For the scene of Catwoman doing backflips, her stunt double and former gymnast Tricia Peters wore boots with a collapsible heel.

9. Catwoman Was Similar to the Comics

The costume designers created a very unique costume. But, by a bizarre coincidence (or clear inspiration), Catwoman’s costume in the movie is similar to the one she was wearing in the comics at the time the film was in production. It consists of a skin-tight suit, gloves, high-heeled boots, a corset, and a cat-eared cowl. In the Batman: Year One comic by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli, Selina is a fetish prostitute and a dominatrix. While Bob Fingger had designed the original Catwoman costume with a “cat o’ nine tails” whip, this comic was the first time the character was depicted as a BDSM figure.

10. There’s a Mask Easter Egg

When Selina is seated in Max Schreck’s (Christopher Walken) office, the lamp casts a shadow through her eyeglass frames, creating an outline of the pointed “cat’s eye” mask that was worn by Catwoman in the original DC comic series and had also been featured as part of the costumes donned by Lee Meriwether and Eartha Kitt in Batman: The Movie (1966) and Batman (1966), respectively.

11. Did Her Own Stunts And Whip Work

Michelle Pfeiffer performed many of her own stunts as Catwoman in Batman Returns, including impressive whip work and fight scenes. While her physicality was iconic, the cartwheels seen in the film were performed by Peters, her stunt double for those specific movements. The suits were so tight that Pfeiffer went through sixty catsuits during the six-month shoot, and each cost around $1,000. As if that wasn’t expensive enough, wait till you hear what happened next.

12. She Burned All The Costumes

Is it any wonder that the actress admitted to burning all the Catwoman suits after shooting wrapped? And yet, despite the discomfort, Michelle Pfeiffer would absolutely consider reprising her Batman role if asked. She even shared a video of her impressive whip work years later.

13. Catwoman Posters were Stolen

Unfortunately, they did their job too well. The movie posters were too sexy. Warner Bros. had to constantly submit new Catwoman posters for various cities, as many of the bus stop ads were being stolen. It got so bad that police officers had to patrol bus stops to catch the thieves before they could break the Plexiglas containers. Which of these shocking Catwoman costume secrets surprised you the most? Let us know in the comments!