How a Shocking Encounter With a Black Cat Changed Alicia Witt’s Life

Getty Alicia Witt at an "Orange is the New Black" season premiere.

Hallmark fans know and love Alicia Witt from movies like “The Mistletoe Inn” and “Christmas on Honeysuckle Lane,” but they might not know about the shocking encounter with a black cat that changed her life.

Witt describes the incident in her new book “Small Changes: A Rules-Free Guide to Add More Plant-Based Foods, Peace, and Power to Your Life.” The bizarre accident occurred while Witt was in London filming a movie called “The Upside of Anger.”

“I was teaching Keri (Russel) how to play backgammon at our table beneath the awning out on the patio, enjoying the perfect summer night, when a black cat suddenly was thrown out the window of the apartment above the pub. The cat bounced off the awning, and as it scrambled, claws outstretched, desperate to find its footing, it landed on my face and then raced away into the night,” 46-year-old Witt writes.

Witt’s upper lip was “completely split in two” by the cat’s claws. She was terrified that her resulting scars would end her acting career and jeopardize her role in the film she was currently working on. But the film’s director assured her that she wasn’t going to lose the part, no matter what.

“From that moment on, I’ve thought about beauty differently,” Witt writes in her memoir. “My confidence has grown immensely, and I’ve been moving ever closer to living my authentic life, ever since I abandoned the notion that I should try to be some version of what others want me to be.”

How Witt’s 2020 Hallmark Film Set a New Industry Standard

Witt’s 2020 Hallmark film “Christmas Tree Lane” paved the way for other film productions in a post-COVID world.

“It turned out that when we all kind of came out of that initial COVID shutdown, this was one of the only scripts that Hallmark had ready to film,” Witt said in an interview with Media Village. “That’s why we ended up as the first one out of the gate. We were actually the first major network or studio in the United States to go into production.”

She went on to explain that filming began before new official protocols for safe filming had been released, so the way they handled things for “Christmas Tree Lane” became the new blueprint.

“It was before (film productions) had resumed in a widespread way, so we didn’t know what to expect or what to make of it all,” Witt said.

Witt Contributed an Original Song to the Film

The song Witt’s character plays in “Christmas Tree Lane” was actually written by the actress herself.

“I felt it was a good song to demonstrate that (her character) Meg is an artist at heart, and even though she’s been stuck creatively and hasn’t written anything in a while, it’s still a very big part of her and something she should be doing whether heard or not,” Witt told Media Village.

In addition to her acting, Witt is a singer-songwriter. According to her website, she has opened for acts including Ben Folds and Rachel Platten.

READ NEXT: Country Star Wrote a Song for His Wife’s New Hallmark Film