Anne Hathaway walked into her meeting with Christopher Nolan for The Dark Knight Rises convinced she was there to audition for the wrong character entirely. She had spent an entire week preparing to play Harley Quinn.
According to Variety, Hathaway revealed the story on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. She knew she was being considered for the female lead in Nolan's third Batman film, but she had ruled out Catwoman on her own. Her reasoning was simple: Michelle Pfeiffer had played the role too memorably for any director to attempt a repeat.
"Here's the thing that worked in my favor: she's a chameleon," Hathaway said. "So, I knew I was auditioning for… I was meeting with Chris [Nolan] for the female role in the Batman trilogy, the next installment. I thought that I'd gamed it out, because I was just like, 'It can't be Catwoman because Michelle Pfeiffer was so iconic… [gasp] It's going to be Harley Quinn!'"
The logic made some sense at the time. The Dark Knight in 2008 had introduced The Joker, and Harley Quinn, the character most closely associated with the Joker in the comics and animated series, seemed like a natural follow-up. Hathaway committed to the theory fully.
"So, I spent a week developing demonic Harley Quinn energy. I was wearing weird jester flats and a striped top," she continued. "And then, about two hours into our conversation, Chris is like, 'So, the part's Catwoman,' and I was like, 'Transform!' So, I just then decided that I was like, 'Well, this top is very sensual.' And I was going to be very… like a psychopath. I changed personalities like a psychopath."
She got the part. Her performance as Selina Kyle earned widespread praise and The Dark Knight Rises went on to gross over $1.1 billion at the worldwide box office, according to Screen Rant, which noted it gave a proper finale to Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne.
The meeting also launched one of the more durable working relationships in contemporary Hollywood. Hathaway and Nolan have since collaborated on Interstellar in 2014, where she played NASA scientist Dr. Amelia Brand, and they are now working together again on The Odyssey, set for release July 17 from Universal Pictures.
That partnership carried real weight for Hathaway beyond just the work. At the time she was cast in The Dark Knight Rises, she was facing intense public backlash following her Oscar win for Les Misérables. "A lot of people wouldn't give me roles because they were so concerned about how toxic my identity had become online," she told Vanity Fair in 2024. "I had an angel in Christopher Nolan, who did not care about that and gave me one of the most beautiful roles I've had in one of the best films that I've been a part of."
Harley Quinn, the role Hathaway had been so sure she was preparing for, eventually made it to the screen four years later. Margot Robbie was cast to bring the character into the DC Extended Universe in the 2016 film Suicide Squad.
The Odyssey opens July 17.