Anne Hathaway prepared for Harley Quinn, complete with the character’s attitude and style, before Christopher Nolan clarified she was actually cast as Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises. The mixup stemmed from a lack of clear communication during her audition for the 2012 Batman trilogy finale. Hathaway and Nolan would go on to collaborate again on Interstellar.
Christopher Nolan has a well documented habit of keeping his actors in the dark, but few mix ups turned out quite as memorable as this one. Anne Hathaway spent her audition prep channeling Harley Quinn’s manic energy, convinced that was the part on offer for the final chapter of the Batman trilogy. Only later did she learn she’d actually landed Selina Kyle, the sharp witted cat burglar who would go toe to toe with Bruce Wayne in Gotham. The mix up says a lot about Nolan’s notoriously tight lipped casting process, and it’s just one of the stories Hathaway shared while looking back on a partnership that later carried them both through Interstellar and now brings them together again for L’Odyssée.
A surprising twist in Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman journey
When Anne Hathaway slipped into the Catwoman suit for Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, she delivered one of the most memorable takes on Selina Kyle ever put on screen. Yet the actress recently shared a detail that fans never knew: heading into her audition, she was convinced she was reading for an entirely different DC character.
The Dark Knight Rises: Nolan’s ambitious finale
Released in 2012, the film closed out Nolan’s celebrated Batman trilogy with Christian Bale back in the cowl. It introduced Tom Hardy’s hulking Bane, a former member of the League of Shadows bent on plunging Gotham into chaos, alongside Hathaway’s slippery cat burglar. The gamble paid off handsomely: the movie crossed $1 billion at the global box office, cementing the trilogy’s place in superhero movie history.
The audition mix-up: from Harley Quinn to Catwoman
Speaking with Josh Horowitz in a recent interview, Hathaway explained that Nolan never told her which role she was testing for. Left to guess, she assumed it was Harley Quinn, the Joker’s unhinged accomplice. She committed fully, spending a week channeling the character’s bubbly, unsettling energy and even wearing what she described as “weird jester shoes and a striped top” to get into the right headspace.
Nolan eventually set the record straight mid-process: the part was Selina Kyle. Hathaway recalibrated her whole approach, trading manic chaos for feline cool, and landed the role. Can you picture how different that trilogy’s finale would feel if the confusion had never been cleared up?
Hathaway’s post-Gotham collaborations with Nolan
The partnership between actress and director did not end in Gotham. Hathaway reunited with Nolan 2 years later for Interstellar, playing Dr. Amelia Brand in the acclaimed space epic. Their third collaboration is now on the horizon, and it may be the biggest one yet.
Hathaway has been cast as Penelope in The Odyssey, Nolan’s sweeping adaptation of Homer’s epic poem chronicling Odysseus’ turbulent voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. The production carries a notable distinction: it is the first film in history shot entirely with IMAX cameras. Universal will release it in US theaters on July 17, 2026, with IMAX screens offering the full-format experience. For an actress who once showed up to an audition dressed as the wrong character, the ongoing trust Nolan places in her says plenty. Three films in, their creative shorthand clearly keeps delivering.