Amy Hill was already an established screen presence long before putting on the cardigan to play the children's neglected caretaker. A veteran of the San Francisco stage and Margaret Cho’s groundbreaking 1994 sitcom All-American Girl, Hill had built an enviable career as an eccentric character actor. In The Cat in the Hat, director Bo Welch and the screenwriting team cast her as Mrs. Kwan, an ostensibly responsible elder hired to supervise young Conrad and Sally, played by Spencer Breslin and Dakota Fanning.
The role required almost zero spoken dialogue. Instead, Mrs. Kwan functions as an immovable domestic object. She drops into a dead sleep within minutes of her arrival, tuning out the chaos unfolding in the house while an oversized television loops Taiwanese parliament brawl footage. Hill’s deadpan expressions, mouth slightly agape, provided the film's child stars with an anchor for frantic physical comedy.
The character's physical indignities escalated quickly. In the film's climax, Conrad and Sally drag the catatonic babysitter through an altered dimension, ultimately using her stiffened body as an impromptu sled down a purple rapids river. Delivering those sight gags meant Hill spent long days strapped into rigid body harnesses and enduring multiple takes on mechanical rigs designed to simulate whitewater rafting.
