The Dark Knight Rises Looking At Actresses For Both A Love Interest And A Villain

We've been hearing for a little while that Christopher Nolan has been looking for a new female lead for The Dark Knight Rises. We heard a few weeks ago that the director has already begun meeting with non-A-list actresses in their late 20s to early 30s for an unspecified role. If the newest bit of news is accurate, then only some of that is true.

Deadline reports that Nolan has indeed begun meeting with actresses, though B-listers they are not. So who are they? Only every major actress that every single film has been looking at for the last year, namely Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts, Blake Lively, Natalie Portman, Anne Hathaway and Keira Knightley (does any director not want Portman as part of their film?). Only making things more interesting is that apparently Nolan is looking for two women: one to play Bruce Wayne's new love interest and the other to play...drumroll please...a villain.

If true, the likelihood of us seeing Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises just jumped up about 300%, though it's interesting that if Catwoman is chosen they would also have another actress play a love interest - though Bruce Wayne and Batman having separate relationships would be a great conflict. With the exception of maybe Lively, who already has the superhero thing taken care of with Green Lantern coming out next summer, I actually really like the list that they've assembled here. As always, stay tuned for further developments.