Anne Hathaway Didn’t Actually Know She Was Auditioning For Catwoman In Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy
Anne Hathaway’s massive year continues this month, with The Odyssey being the latest of her many 2026 movie releases on the way. Notably, the historical drama also marks her third time working with Christopher Nolan. But did you know the circumstances of Hathaway’s first audition for Nolan? It revolves around a funny misunderstanding the actress had about what role she was auditioning for in The Dark Knight Rises.
It goes without saying that auditioning for a director like Nolan is no small feat, and Hathaway wanted to ensure she was prepared when they met for his final Batman film. Here’s what the actress recently recalled about how it went:
So, I knew I was auditioning, I was meeting with Chris for the female role in the Batman trilogy, in the next installment. And, I thought that I’d gamed it out because I was just like, ‘It can’t be Catwoman because Michelle Pfeiffer was so iconic. Oh, it’s going to be Harley Quinn!’ So I spent a week developing demonic Harley Quinn energy. And, I was wearing weird jester flats and a striped top and then about two hours into our conversation Chris is like, ‘So, the part is Catwoman.’
Now, Anne Hathaway isn’t alone in meeting a filmmaker for a superhero role she didn’t know about. A similar thing happened to the likes of Brie Larson for Captain Marvel and Paul Rudd for Ant-Man. But, in Hathaway’s case, she was under the impression that Nolan was looking for a Harley Quinn, and she dressed accordingly.
As she recalled to Happy Sad Confused, there was an the awkward moment when the filmmaker told her what role she was auditioning for, and the reveal led to her instantly change up her demeanor to adapt to it. In her words:
So, I just then decided that I was like, well, this top is just very sensual and I was going to be very [Catwoman-esque]… like a psychopath. I changed personalities like a psychopath.
Hathaway says she thinks her misreading of the role actually “worked in [her] favor,” because Selina Kyle is “a chameleon”. I’d be so curious about Christopher Nolan’s recollection of his first meeting with Anne Hathaway for The Dark Knight Rises but, ultimately, she obviously made a good impression, considering she got the part!
Hathaway’s hiring ended up being the first time an actress played the role of Catwoman in a live-action Batman movie since Michelle Pfeiffer’s version in 1992. Then, it wasn’t until Zoë Kravitz played Selina Kyle in 2022’s The Batman alongside Robert Pattinson’s version of the Caped Crusader that there was another big-screen Catwoman after the Devil Wears Prada star.
Hathaway may have been wrong about Harley Quinn at the time, but she was right about Warner Bros. wanting to bring the comic book character to life in a DC film. It was just four years later when Margot Robbie debuted her Harley Quinn in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad.
For the time being, the current schedule of upcoming DC movies doesn’t officially include the return of Catwoman or Harley Quinn. However, I hope it won’t be too long before these fan-favorite femme fatales come back somehow. For now, we’re excited to see Anne Hathaway reunite with Nolan to play Odysseus’ wife, Penelope, in The Odyssey, coming to theaters on July 17.
