The Batman star Zoë Kravitz recalls losing a Dark Knight Rises audition due to skin colour

Zoe Kravitz, who played Selina Kyle, a.k.a. Catwoman in Matt Reeves' The Batman, has revealed that she auditioned for a role in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises in 2012 but was turned down because she was too "urban".

Kravitz discussed this in a recent interview with a news outlet, according to The Hollywood Reporter. She explained that she is not sure if it came from Nolan himself. She believes it was either a casting director or a casting director's assistant. Being a woman of colour and an actor at the time, and being told that she couldn't read because of the colour of her skin, as well as the phrase "urban" being thrown around like that, was quite difficult.

Kravitz previously talked about this event in a 2015 interview, saying that they told her that because they weren't "going urban", she wouldn't be able to apply for a minor part they were casting. The actor reacted to it by saying, "What does that have to do with anything?" She wondered if all she had to do was play the part. 

Kravitz spent four months preparing for her physical performance in The Batman, and she even watched movies of big cats to improve her character's stride and movements.

The three-hour film follows Bruce Wayne's (Robert Pattinson) early days as a crime fighter and features a who's who of Batman foes. The Riddler is played by Paul Dano, and the Penguin is played by Colin Farrell.

According to studio figures released by measurement firm Comscore on Sunday, The Batman dominated the North American box office on its opening weekend, grossing a three-day estimate of 128.5 million dollars.

The film, which is based on the DC Comics character Batman, has had the biggest opening weekend of 2022 so far and is the highest-grossing film released this year in North America after only one weekend in theatres. It also has the second-largest opening weekend of the COVID-19 pandemic era, trailing only another superhero film, Spider-Man: No Way Home.