Anne Hathaway Talks The Dark Knight Rises: I ‘Wanted To Rise’ To Fan Expectations

Taking on the iconic role of Catwoman/Selina Kyle in the upcoming “The Dark Knight Rises” is something Anne Hathaway is still in awe about.

“I couldn’t believe that this was even an opportunity made available to me and then when I actually got it I, I mean it… it’s a little bit too good to be true,” the actress told Access Hollywood this weekend at the press junket for “The Dark Knight Rises.” “I’m kind of waiting for someone to come out and just be like, ‘Psych! You got punked!’”

The 29-year-old actress explained that she was very aware of the form-fitting suit she’d be wearing in Christopher Nolan’s third Batman installment.

“It just dominated my thoughts for a year basically. From the time that I got cast until the last time I wore [the costume,]…everything I put in my mouth related back to how it would affect my time in the gym,” she told Access. “My time in the gym was dictated by it…there’s a lot of expectation and I wanted to rise to it.”

The actress explained that fans will get to see a side of her never seen on the big screen – her butt-kicking side.

“At no point was I ever told how to look. Chris didn’t tell me, the producers didn’t tell me, the studio. It was never about, ‘How do you look,” it was, ‘What can you do?’” she said of the character’s onscreen fighting style “So, I had to learn how to fight… properly fight and then once I was in fighting shape, then we decided that is the shape that [Catwoman] gets.”

Adding, “It was nice not to have a lot of that pressure of some sort of unattainable ideal put on me.”

“The Dark Knight Rises” hits theaters on July 20.

— Jesse Spero