Matt Reeves' The Batman introduces a new take on Selina Kyle/Catwoman, played brilliantly by Zoë Kravitz. The Big Little Lies star actually had a brush with The Bat back in 2011 when she went in to read for a role in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, but wasn't even allowed to audition after being told she was "too urban" for the part.
“I don’t know if it came directly from Chris Nolan,” she tells The Guardian. “I think it was probably a casting director of some kind, or a casting director’s assistant. Being a woman of colour and being an actor and being told at that time that I wasn’t able to read because of the colour of my skin, and the word urban being thrown around like that, that was what was really hard about that moment.”
Landing the Catwoman role in The Batman must have felt pretty great great after this! “It was crazy,” she added. "My phone was blowing up more than any birthday I’ve ever had.”
Kravitz doesn't name the character she was up for in TDKR, but it was most likely Catwoman's (Anne Hathaway) young sidekick Holly Robinson, who ended up being played by Ted Lasso's Juno Temple.
We assume Kravitz will return for the inevitable sequel, but Reeves has indicated that it's far from a given. The filmmaker has teases tentative plans for a Catwoman spinoff series on HBO Max, however.