Cat's Real Name: Catherine Black

Quick answer: Cat's real name is Catherine Black (also styled Cat Black). She is a Canadian–American actor, director, screenwriter, and artist billed as Catherine Black or Cat. This page is about that filmmaker—not the domestic-cat Wikipedia article that wrongly inflated this slug’s pageview match.

Real name and early life

Official biography and Alliance of Women Directors materials identify Catherine Black, born in Toronto, Ontario, and based in Los Angeles (Catherine Black about; Voyage LA / Cat Black). Black is the family surname; Cat is the everyday short form used in teaching and some press. She began professionally as a stage actor at 16 (Juliet under Lewis Baumander) and worked Dora Award–winning Toronto theater before film and TV. Classically trained as a singer at the Royal Conservatory of Music, she is also a painter who has exhibited in Toronto. She is a member of SAG-AFTRA, ACTRA, and the Alliance of Women Directors.

Career highlights

Screen credits include Vanden opposite Christian Bale in Mary Harron’s American Psycho (2000), work on Odyssey 5, The Donner Party with Crispin Glover, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. After shadowing directors and producing shorts and commercials, she wrote and directed award-winning short films such as De Puta Madre A Love Story (Best Actress, Madrid International Film Festival 2014) and Girl Trip, plus Like Nothing Happened (Best Drama, Rock The Shorts 2021). She teaches acting at Stuart Rogers Studios. Across acting and directing credits, billing stays Catherine Black / Cat; the documented name is Catherine Black.

Independent shorts may appear on VOD rather than big-box Blu-ray; acting credits like American Psycho drive most catalog discovery.

Name notes for searchers

Popularity queues sometimes match the slug “cat” to English Wikipedia’s animal article; that is a false pageview attribution. RealNameOf’s directors stub and live site copy point to Catherine Black. Prefer her official site and Alliance of Women Directors listings over animal-page traffic. Wikipedia’s actress article is a pointer after those primaries.