Anne Hathaway's Catwoman Costume Will Include Goggles, Actually Be Functional

Anne Hathaway as Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises
(Image credit: Warner Bros.)

Only on a Christopher Nolan film can information about one character's costume actually count as news. OK, fine, that's often the case for any adaptation of a superhero movie-- we were all very anxious before getting the first look at Chris Evans's Captain America costume-- but in the case of the story over at Hollywood Life, we're not even talking about the hero's costume here-- we're talking about the villain. They talked to a source "very close to the costume design" who revealed a few details about what we can expect Anne Hathaway to be wearing as she plays Catwoman in next summer's The Dark Knight Rises, which is filming now. Not that you really expected them to hearken back to the 2003 disaster Catwoman, but her costume will not in fact be anything like Halle Berry's. Here's what they had to say:

“Anne’s outfit is more tactical, like the comic book, than the previous Batman movies. She will definitely be wearing the goggles and it’s going to be less sexy than Halle Berry and Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman costumes. She’s going to look more like a robber. But fan boys shouldn’t be worried. This costume is going to be form-fitting enough to make Anne look smoking hot.”

Hathaway's actually in an interesting position in the movie, playing the first female villain in Nolan's Batman universe, and possibly the most sexualized of any of the characters in the movies so far. Though Rachel Dawes, as played by Katie Holmes and Maggie Gyllenhaal, was perfectly pretty and played a key role in both films, she was never all that sexualized-- as the assistant district attorney, it really wouldn't have been appropriate. But Catwoman is a character who practically invented sex appeal-- she was once played by Eartha Kitt, for God's sake-- and Hathaway is inevitably going to have to look hot in her costume, even if it's retrofitted to make her fight scenes more believable.

I've been sticking up for Hathaway's casting since the beginning, and feel totally confident that she's putting in a ridiculous amount of work to be in proper shape for the role. Now we know she'll have a costume to match her skills-- though knowing how secretive these Batman productions tend to be, it will likely be many months before we get a look at the real thing.

Katey Rich

Staff Writer at CinemaBlend