Why Halle Berry is asking fans to wear their 'best distressed wigs' to special screenings of her new film

Wigs off to Halle Berry.

If you don't keep up with the Oscar-winning actress on X (formerly Twitter), you might be confused to learn that Berry helped organize special screenings of her new film, Never Let Go, in which she asked fans to "show up in your favorite Halle wig."

The X post included a link to a Google Form inviting fans to "celebrate Halle Berry & her distressed wigs" at a set of screenings to take place Sept. 17 in New York City and Atlanta. "Halle Berry brings us another movie with kids she's trying to keep alive and wigs she's distressing to death," reads the invite. It puts out a call to "Halle's super fans to join us in celebrating her new movie by attending a special fan in New York and Atlanta screening in your best distressed wigs. Wear a bob," it continues, "Wear 50 inch Brazilian. Bring a pussycat wig. Bring any wig as long as it's DISTRESSED."

Reps for Berry provided no comment when reached by Entertainment Weekly.

The Never Let Go (of my wig) screenings originated from an Aug. 27 X post from user @MyNameisKai__, which shared the new poster for Berry's film with the comment, "Lemme go ahead and pull my short wig out to see this in theaters." Berry, ever involved in the jokery and memery of her online fan base, shared the post with her own comment: "Can you guys please send me pictures of y'all going to the theater in your distressed wigs?" She signed the post "Thx, Management."

A simple X post from a personal account with only a thousand followers ended up launching one of the more unique promotional events in recent horror history. But it actually isn't so simple, and to understand how the Never Let Go (of my wig) screenings actually came to be, you have to go much further back.

The year is 2013. Berry had just appeared in one of the biggest critical and commercial bombs of the new millennium, the satirical anthology film Movie 43. Berry received some positive notices for her performance in the Wachowskis/Tom Tykwer film Cloud Atlas the year before, but hadn't starred in the box-office smash or artistic triumph that defined the star-making period of her career a decade before.

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Then came The Call, a quietly, though mainly positively received thriller in which Berry played a 911 operator drawn into a game of cat and mouse with a serial killer. Stills of Berry in the film proved to have a longer shelf life than the film itself, and remained in constant circulation with a cadre of online Berry fans who light-heartedly poked fun at the "distressed" wig she'd been given to wear.

The Call wig became so heavily memed on the Berry side of the internet that the actress herself began joining in on the fun. You can log onto the site on any given day and witness Berry herself trading memes featuring choppy Call wig edits and going back and forth with fans making jokes about it.

"This wig has gotten talked about so very much," she said in a 2022 "Behind the Tweets" video. "If anybody needs that wig," she joked, "let me know and I will send it."

In a Sept. 14 X post, Berry shared a gif of an inquisitive looking Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, and wrote, "Me when the photos start rolling in from the #NeverLetGo Wig Screenings, making sure you all did it justice." She continued, "Y'all have been ragging on my movie wigs for years Let the Wig Off begin."

Berry has always maintained a close relationship with her fans, surprising them at advance screenings and now even organizing them for her strongest supporters.

The actress's superfans are encouraged to submit their names for consideration for the Never Let Go (of my wig) screenings, to take place Sept. 17. The film opens theatrically on Sept. 20.