Anne Hathaway’s Harley Quinn Audition For The Dark Knight Totally Changes Her Catwoman

Anne Hathaway’s initial efforts to audition for the role of Harley Quinn for The Dark Knight trilogy make her Catwoman look very different after you learn about it. The Dark Knight movie trilogy contains some of the best superhero movie performances of all time, with Christian Bale’s Batman and Heath Ledger’s Joker in particular being celebrated ever since the actors first appeared in the roles on-screen.

Learning the wider behind-the-scenes stories around these castings also tends to make them all the more impressive, as is evidenced by just how much more strikingly good Bale and Ledger’s performances feel with the added knowledge that the initial news of their casting was met with some criticism from those who didn’t think they had the capacity to play their respective roles.

Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman – who plays a central role in The Dark Knight Rises, the final chapter of The Dark Knight trilogy – is another prime example of this. The story around how Hathaway got the role despite coming into her audition prepped to try out for the role of Harley Quinn makes her actual on-screen role look all the more different – and all the more impressive – on a revisit for more than one reason.

Hearing How Anne Hathaway Initially Tried To Audition For The Dark Knight Rises As Harley Quinn Makes Her Catwoman Look Different

When discussing the audition that would eventually net her the role of The Dark Knight trilogy’s Catwoman, Anne Hathaway also mentioned that she was initially unaware the role she was being considered for was that of the feline villain-turned-antihero, and believed she was instead being cast for a decidedly different character – namely, Harley Quinn. In the interview with BBC 1 Radio (via CBR), Hathaway explained:

“I came in and I had this lovely Vivienne 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 [Nolan] these crazy little smiles. 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.'”

This reveal makes it doubly impressive that Hathaway was cast as Catwoman and did so well in the role – given she clearly had prepared to demonstrate a very different character to director Christopher Nolan – and also makes her performance in The Dark Knight Rises all the more interesting, since there are specific scenes wherein you can see glimpses of what the actor’s Harley Quinn would have been like.

Anne Hathaway’s Harley Quinn Hopes Actually Make Her Catwoman Way More Impressive

Warner Bros. Pictures

Given Anne Hathaway’s initial casting story for The Dark Knight Rises began with her believing she was up for the role of Harley Quinn, it’s all the more engaging to note that she would go on to provide one of the best and most iconic Catwoman performances of all time, and delivers an iteration of Selina Kyle that’s striking enough you’d be forgiven for thinking she always intended to play the character.

However, this performance is only more impressive with the context that things began with Hathaway vying for the role of Harley Quinn, in part because moments like her stabbing a man with a concealed weapon in her heel after he held a gun to her head and asked her if her shoes hurt – and asking “do they?” – or her delivery of the line “where’s the fun in that?” to Batman after he tells her not to kill their enemies when the pair fight side by side does suggest the actor would’ve also been a formidable Harley Quinn.

Ultimately, watching Hathaway’s Catwoman on-screen after learning about her prior Harley Quinn hopes serves to emphasize a different side to the antihero, further underlining the nuances the actor provided the character in The Dark Knight trilogy, and showing the range she’s capable of when it comes to big screen roles.