Zoë Kravitz Recalls Being Called Too 'Urban' for The Dark Knight Rises Role: That 'Was Really Hard'
Zoë Kravitz Recalls Being Called Too 'Urban' for The Dark Knight Rises Role: That 'Was Really Hard'
Zoë Kravitz says she was denied a part in a previous Batman movie because of the color of her skin.
The 33-year-old actress, who plays Catwoman/Selina Kyle in the new movie The Batman, recalled to The Observer how she intended to audition for a role in the 2012 sequel The Dark Knight Rises but was turned down because she was deemed too "urban" for the film.
It’s unknown what role Kravitz wanted to audition for, but it’s believed to have been the one of Catwoman’s roommate Jen, who was played by Juno Temple.
Kravitz has opened up about the experience before, including in a 2015 interview with Nylon.
"In the last Batman movie [The Dark Knight Rises], they told me that I couldn't get an audition for a small role they were casting because they weren't 'going urban,'" she told the magazine at the time. "It was like, 'What does that have to do with anything?' I have to play the role like, 'Yo, what's up, Batman? What's going on wit chu?'"
The Dark Knight Rises was directed by Christopher Nolan and starred Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Anne Hathaway as Catwoman.
"I don't know if it came directly from Chris Nolan. I think it was probably a casting director of some kind, or a casting director's assistant. … Being a woman of color and being an actor and being told at that time that I wasn't able to read because of the color of my skin, and the word urban being thrown around like that, that was what was really hard about that moment," said Kravitz.
The star added that she has come to realize how to see the positive in rejections: "Even though it's sometimes hard to see that in the moment, usually a few years later, you're like, 'Okay, this is why this didn't happen.' "
Now, Kravitz is receiving praise for her The Batman performance as the iconic cat-burglar, who has previously been portrayed by Michelle Pfeiffer, Halle Berry and Eartha Kitt. The film opened to No. 1 at the domestic box office over the weekend.
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CREDIT: ANGELA WEISS/AFP/GETTY
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She also told The Observer that "at one point, all the scripts that were being sent were about the first Black woman to make a muffin or something. Even though those stories are important to tell, I also want to open things up for myself as an artist."
The Big Little Lies star said her parents Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet "broke down boundaries in a lot of ways" as they "both dealt with being artists who didn't act or dress or look or sound the way a Black person was supposed to act in terms of what white people specifically were comfortable with."
"I was uncomfortable with my Blackness. It took me a long time to not only accept it but to love it and want to scream it from the rooftops," she said, adding that her famous parents "focused on trying to make sure I understood that despite the color of my skin I should be able to act or dress or do whatever it is I want to do."
The Batman is now in theaters.
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