Christopher Nolan’s 1 Demand Made Anne Hathaway Go Through the Hardest Training of Her Career For The Dark Knight Rises

Anne Hathaway is an iconic actress known for starring in iconic movies like Les Misérables, The Dark Knight Rises, and, The Devil Wears Prada. Starring in these iconic roles, Hathaway has built up quite a reputation in Hollywood but it wasn’t that easy.

From portraying a princess in The Princess Diaries to Catwoman in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, Hathaway is quite a versatile actress. Starring in the role of Catwoman, however, came at an extensive physical cost to the actress.

Anne Hathaway, Catwoman, And The Dark Knight Rises

It was the year 2012 when Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, and, Anne Hathaway starred in the iconic finale of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy with The Dark Knight Rises. With Bane wanting to wreak havoc across Gotham, Hathaway portrayed the role of Selina Kyle aka Catwoman, a burglar wanting to make a luxurious living through thievery.

Her paths crossed with Christian Bale’s Batman, and their initial encounters are shown as quite iconic in the film. Kicking the walking aid from a weak Bruce Wayne while entering his home, Selin Kyle does a backflip to get out of the house in style.

In an interview with Vanity Fair (via Instagram), Hathaway sat down to take a look at her filmography after all these years. While talking about the 2012 film, the Interstellar actress revealed that she remembered every little detail.

I’m so thrilled I’m in this movie. Oh I worked so hard for this back flip. Christopher Nolan came to me at the beginning of the production, and he said ‘I’d like you to train very hard for this.’

The actress further continued that Nolan had but only one request. The veteran director wanted that Anne Hathaway would do as many of her stunts as possible.

‘It has nothing to do with anything except that I would like you to do as many of your stunts as possible, as much as of the fighting. Anything that, you know, isn’t like a ridiculously special skillset, like riding the Batpod, I want to be you.’ Said Christopher Nolan.

Well, the actress further continued the conversation with Vanity Fair by simply saying that she asked Nolan to sign her up for the role. However, these promises would turn into some rigorous training for the actress as the intense scenes in The Dark Knight Rises needed more than just a strong will.

Portraying the role of Catwoman, Hathaway had to be sleek, graceful, and a thriving expert with that iconic look in her eyes, But more than that, Hathaway had to push her physical strength and she did, by doing most of her stunts herself!

Anne Hathaway Hit The Gym Immediately!

As the interview further continued, Hathaway revealed that after she said ‘yes’ to Christopher Nolan, there was no time to lose. Joining a gym immediately, Hathaway started training rigorously for her role of Catwoman.

The training eventually paid off as Hathaway was recognized as one of the most iconic Catwoman ever since Michelle Pfeiffer donned the role. The actress even went as far as to claim that this was the hardest training that she had ever done for a role!

And so I went straight to the gym. And up to this point, this was the hardest I’d ever trained for a role physically. 

All the gym-hitting hours and a will to do her own stunts paid off eventually as The Dark Knight Rises went on to become one of the most iconic films of all time. Earning $1 billion worldwide, this was Nolan’s magnum opus in terms of box office collection.

Upon its release, the film received a rating of 8.4/10 on IMDB and a whopping 87% on Rotten Tomatoes. 12 years down the line, The Dark Knight Rises remains one of the best finales to a trilogy and the world agrees with the statement.

The iconic 2012 film is available to stream on Max in the U.S.