Anne Hathaway thought her Dark Knight Rises audition was for Harley Quinn

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Anne Hathaway joined a long line of actresses taking on the role of Catwoman/Selena Kyle in Christopher Nolan's THE DARK KNIGHT RISES but when she went in for the audition, she actually thought she was reading for a completely different role. 

During a recent interview it's BBC One, Hathaway revealed she was under the impression she was auditioning to play Harley Quinn, a role that would eventually got to Margot Robbie in 2016's SUICIDE SQUAD. Hathaway goes into a bit of embarrassing detail as to how the audition went before Nolan revealed she was actually reading to play Catwoman:

"I came in and I had this lovely Vivian Westwood kind of beautiful-but-mad tailoring top with stripes going everywhere. And I wore these flat Joker-ey looking shoes. And I was trying to give Chris these crazy little smiles."

Hathaway then goes into how she sat in the meeting with Nolan for quite awhile before he told her about who he wanted her to play which made her feel more ridiculous that she came dressed that way which led to her trying to adjust her persona a bit in the meeting to now fit the Catwoman role:

"About an hour into the meeting he said 'Well, I'm sure I don't have to tell you this, but it's Catwoman.' And I was shifting into a different gear. 'Now ok, we're slinky. We're slinky. And I hate my shirt. I love my shirt, but I hate it right now. We're slinky.'"

Everything worked out as it should've because, in my opinion, Hathaway was a very capable Catwoman as she didn't try to mimic the women that took on the role before her. Since THE DARK KNIGHT RISES was grounded a bit more in reality, Hathaway got to add some layers to the role that may have been missing in other portrayals. Michelle Pfeiffer's turn in BATMAN RETURNS is still tops but I would say Hathaway is a solid runner-up. We'll see how Zoe Kravitz holds up when she takes on the role in THE BATMAN in 2021.You can check out the BBC One interview below.

I'm also trying to picture her as Harley Quinn and I'm guessing she could play maniacally goofy since she's a pretty diverse actress but I think the stars aligned in the right way to eventually lead to Margot Robbie scoring the role. THE DARK KNIGHT RISES came out 8 years ago this summer which would've made Hathaway about 29 or 30 at the time so it's possible she would've been a good fit but everything worked out as it should've. 

Do YOU think Anne Hathaway would've been a good Harley Quinn?