Zoë Kravitz Was Told She’s Too ‘Urban’ to Audition for Dark Knight Rises

ZoĂŤ Kravitz, Catwoman. Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

Zoë Kravitz finally made her way into the Batman universe, but the journey to her role as Catwoman in Matt Reeves’s new film was riddled with racism. Now starring alongside Robert Pattinson in The Batman, Kravitz reflected on her previous experience auditioning for 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises. “I don’t know if it came directly from Chris Nolan,” Kravitz told The Guardian. “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.” She says her parents, Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz, didn’t warn her about Hollywood’s racialized type casting, but they “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.”

Back in 2015, in the middle of a remarkably candid time for Hollywood actresses, Kravitz told Nylon she was denied the chance to audition for a part in the Dark Knight trilogy’s final installment. As Kravitz recalled, “They told me that I couldn’t get an audition for a small role they were casting because they weren’t ‘going urban.’ 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?’”

Which, frankly, would have been preferable to the way Bane spoke.

This post has been updated.