'Pressure of playing Catwoman made me sick'

Hollywood beauty Anne Hathaway
on her 'badass' role in Batman

Cat fight ... Anne Hathaway stars as Catwoman in new flick The Dark Knight Rises

THE Devil Wears Latex – as Anne Hathaway prepares to prowl across our cinema screens as Catwoman in this summer’s The Dark Knight Rises. 

 

But the actress — best known for playing Vogue editor Anna Wintour’s assistant Andrea in 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada — says the pressure of playing the feline femme fatale makes her feel SICK.
Anne is the first woman villain in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, which has featured such memorable baddies as Cillian Murphy’s Scarecrow and Heath Ledger’s Joker.
She tells The Sun: “I didn’t realise I was the first — and I feel a little nauseous. That’s a lot of pressure.”
But not as much pressure as she is under to keep the film’s secrets safely locked away until it opens in the UK on July 20.
Notoriously tight-lipped director Christopher insisted that no one be given the opportunity to leak details of the film’s storyline, requiring Anne to come in and read the script on site, without being given a copy to take home and study.
So far we know that the film, whose principal villain is Tom Hardy’s masked Bane, includes such set pieces as a skyjacking, an exploding football field and the sacking of Gotham City by rioters.

Bad mews ... Anne Hathaway as evil Catwoman in new film

Anne says: “I had to read the script in a locked room — OK, maybe the room wasn’t locked, I could be adding that for dramatic effect. But you know what I mean. “I read it through once really fast and I went back and read over all of my scenes and tried to memorise them as much as I could instantly.
“It was cool. You could call Chris and ask, ‘What is this scene about again?’”
Even when Anne was doing screen tests for the role, she was given only “sides” — the pages of the script where her character appears.
And these were as closely tracked as if Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon were personally supervising their safety.
She says: “When I screen-tested I took the sides home and it was really awkward, because the producer had to hunt me down to get them back so they could be destroyed.”
Even so, the 29-year-old star thinks Christopher’s MI6-level stealth is the right approach. She says: “This should be treated with a certain amount of secrecy, which is great, because I think it is so much more fun to discover it in the movie theatre when there is so much anticipation about the movie.”

Purr-fect ... Anne Hathaway

Anne is frequently photographed holding hands with her fiancé, little-known actor Adam Shulman, 31.
Her notorious ex-boyfriend, con man Raffaello Follieri, was this month deported from the United States after serving 4½ years in jail in Pennsylvania for wire fraud, conspiracy and money-laundering.
He had falsely posed as the Vatican’s chief financial officer to try to mislead investors.
Anne became one of Hollywood’s hottest new actresses overnight in 2001 when she co-starred with Julie Andrews in the Disney hit The Princess Diaries. Then she went on to don a tiara again in 2004’s Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement and Ella Enchanted.
But the role she really wanted was always the sexy, slinky Catwoman, previously played by such screen legends as Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry.
She says: “The first thing you have to say is, what an honour. And it was funny for me, because I got my big break with The Princess Diaries. And during the Press rounds for that, everyone was asking me, ‘Did you always want to be a princess, growing up?’
“No, not really. The truth was no, I wanted to be Catwoman. And I think a lot of women feel that way. And the fact that I am actually her is such a dream come true.
“So it’s such a pinch-me moment. And the fact that I am Catwoman in Chris Nolan’s Gotham to Christian Bale’s Batman is unbelievably cool. You know, she’s totally independent. And let’s face it, she’s badass.”

Biker girl ... Anne Hathaway in clip from the new film

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Anne had little idea of the physical demands of her Catwoman performance, which will highlight her own kick-boxing and mixed martial arts skills.
She says: “I’d always thought I was pretty healthy and I always thought I had worked hard in the gym.
“It turns out that what I thought was hard, in Catwoman’s world is actually light to moderate.
“So I’ve had to ratchet everything up. But I have the most incredible stuntwoman in the world and she’s got me and the character to another level. I do all sorts of kicks. I do a roundhouse kick, and I think it’s all mixed martial arts. And I’ve been doing it in heels!”
The intense physical demands of the role came with an irritating distraction — Christopher filmed The Dark Knight Rises using special IMAX cameras which produce images of extraordinary clarity and vividness.
But unlike ordinary cameras, the IMAX versions are not quiet.
Anne says: “I did notice the noise because it sounds like a cappuccino being made constantly. But for the fight sequences I actually love it because it keeps you out of your head and it adds to the adrenalin, somehow. But I assume that our sound guy who just won an Oscar knows what he’s doing.”
Anne, who was a 2009 Oscar nominee for Rachel Getting Married, will be in cinemas again at Christmas, this time directed by The King’s Speech Oscar-winner Tom Hooper in the big-screen version of West End show Les Miserables.
But for now she promises her latest creation will bring lots of surprises when The Dark Knight Rises finally arrives on screen next month.
She says: “I love how sly she is. I love how, to use a cat metaphor, she walks the fence and you don’t know which side she’s going to come down on.”

The killer kitties

SINCE she first appeared in the Batman No1 comic book in 1940, Catwoman – initially known simply as the Cat – has been both a love interest and a potentially lethal foe to Batman. In her skin-tight catsuits, she has provided a sexy presence you just don’t get from the Penguin.
Here The Sun rates the actresses whose every flick of the tail has made men in the audience purr.

Halle Berry

(Catwoman film, 2004)

Paw effort ... Halle Berry in Catwoman

Halle’s golden career turned to kitty litter after this notorious flop in which she was Berry dull throughout.
RATING: ONE MEOW

Julie Newmar

(Batman TV series, 1966)

Pick of the litter ... Julie Newmar was the first Catwoman

20thC.Fox/Everett / Rex Features

The first actress to play Catwoman in front of a mass audience, Julie pioneered so much of the classic Catwoman look – she even made the tight black Lurex costume herself.
RATING: FIVE MEOWS

Lee Meriwether

(Batman film, 1966)

Sleek ... Lee Meriwether

20thC.Fox/Everett / Rex Features

We hate to be catty but for the first big-screen Batman feature Lee really didn’t improve on Julie’s look or add much personality to the overly-campy movie.
RATING: TWO MEOWS

Michelle Pfeiffer

(Batman Returns film, 1992)

Feline good ... Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman

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Making Catwoman’s sexiness even more prominent, Michelle was the best thing about Tim Burton’s misbegotten sequel to 1989’s Batman – cracking a whip and letting birds fly out of her mouth while making the line “Meow” hilarious.