Zoë Kravitz received rave reviews for her role as Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman, in Matt Reeves’ Batman.
But the actress says she wanted to audition for a role in Christopher Nolan’s 2012 epic The Dark Knight Rises — and was rejected because she was too “urban.”
“I don’t know if it came directly from Chris Nolan,” the 33-year-old told The Guardian. “I think it was probably some casting director or assistant casting director. …Being a woman of color and being an actress and I was told at the time that I couldn’t read because of my skin color and the word “urban” was thrown around, that’s what was really hard. about this moment.”
The Mad Max: Fury Road actress previously spoke about the experience in an interview with Nylon in 2015, when she said, “They told me I couldn’t audition for the little role they were casting because they weren’t going to go to city”. .’ It was like, “What does this have to do with anything?” I have to play a role like, “Hey, how are you, Batman? What happens to chu?
Kravitz trained for four months to prepare for her physical performance in The Batman and studied videos of big cats to perfect her character’s walk and movement.
Warner Bros. and Nolan did not immediately comment on the casting story.
Kravitz added in an interview that she was not interested in roles that were overtly racial. “At some point, all the scripts that were sent in were about the first black woman to bake a muffin or something,” she said. “While these stories are important to tell, I also want to discover myself as an artist.”
The Batman soared to $134 million at the box office – it’s only the second film since December 2019 to top $100 million in its opening weekend. The three-hour film chronicles the early days of Bruce Wayne’s (Robert Pattinson) fight against crime and features a gallery of rogue Batman antagonists. Paul Dano also plays the Riddler and Colin Farrell plays the Penguin.