#catwatching

🐱 Name unknown, striped tabby scottish fold

📍 Spotted on the sofa, in the kitchen, in the bathroom. In the normal world he belongs to Alex, after the swap he belongs to Damien. Completely unbothered by either version of reality.

😼 Director Thea Sharrock fought hard to include the cat — for her it was something missing from the French original, absolutely non-negotiable. Obviously.

🐱 Masuka, tabby and white, credited in the titles as himself

📍 Spotted from the very first scene. Passes through almost every character's hands in Bad City: Arash, his drug-addicted father, the prostitute Atti, the vampire. Silent witness to everything.

😼 Not originally in the film. The director wrote him in after a camera test where Masuka walked curiously into every unfamiliar space. On set they joked: "if you unzipped his fur, you'd find a dog inside." Online fans have dubbed him the Marlon Brando of cat actors.

😿 In real life, Masuka crossed the rainbow bridge in December 2018. Devastated by the loss of Sina Sayyah, his human, the cat never recovered and passed away shortly after. But he will live forever in our hearts and on our screens.

🐱 George, black and white tuxedo coat. Played by Smudge, award-winning animal actor

📍 Spotted in Dr. Euphronius's lab, on the dining room table, and during the police raid. In that last scene, he settles under a table. Observing.

😼 On set, the police "fired" using claps. To make him look scared, trainers stepped back clapping their hands. He treated every treat like it was his last. Smudge is a rescue cat, trained and rehabilitated by his handler.

🐱 Goose, soriano arancio. In realtà è un Flerken

📍 Avvistato in ufficio, sull'astronave, sul cruscotto, in zero gravity. Ovunque. Come tutti i gatti. Solo che questo inghiotte il Tesseract.

😼 Apparenza: gatto domestico innocuo. Realtà: alieno con tentacoli enormi nella bocca capace di contenere dimensioni intere. Sul set era interpretato da quattro gatti reali - Reggie, Archie, Rizzo e Gonzo - ognuno addestrato per scene diverse. I tentacoli erano CGI, per fortuna.

⚠️ Nei fumetti si chiama Chewie, in omaggio a Star Wars. Nel film è stato rinominato Goose in omaggio a Top Gun. Il gatto non è stato consultato in nessuno dei due casi.

✅ TW: IL GATTO STA BENE (non è un gatto, ma sta bene)

🐱 Azzie, white ragdoll. Full name: Azrael, the Angel of Death

📍 Lives at the hospice where Dan Torrance works. Sits on patients' beds before they die. Never wrong. (X)

😼 Named after Oscar, a real cat from a Rhode Island nursing home with the same ability. King saw a news segment about him and it inspired the entire novel. (Romper) Dan's colleagues call Azzie his assistant. He doesn't deny it.

⚠️ In the scene where Azzie jumps on Dan's desk, he puts down a magazine — the same January 1978 issue of Playgirl his father Jack read at the Overlook in The Shining. (Instagram) Flanagan never leaves anything to chance.

🐱 Dinah · red kitten · renamed Oreste in the Italian dub

📍 Spotted at the beginning and end of the film, in the real world only. Never sets a paw in Wonderland. Has more common sense than every other character combined.

😼 The Italian name Oreste isn't random — it exists so the Mad Hatter can make a pun. The cat was renamed for a joke. She was not consulted.

⚠️ In Carroll's novel, Dinah appears from the very first pages and is Alice's constant thought during the fall down the rabbit hole.

✅ TW: CAT IS FINE (never went to Wonderland, making her the most mentally stable character in the film)

🐱 Orangey · orange tabby · known on set as "the world's meanest cat"

📍 Spotted multiple times: on the bed, in the kitchen, in the rain. Everywhere, basically. As cats do.

😼 Two-time PATSY Award winner — the animal equivalent of an Oscar. Halted production multiple times by escaping. More decorated and more difficult than most human cast members. Holly calls him "poor slob without a name." He doesn't seem to mind.

⚠️ In Capote's novella, the cat disappears forever. Blake Edwards disagreed.

✅ TW: CAT IS FINE (wet, but fine)