THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (Anne Speaks)

• THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

The Los Angeles Times chatted with actress Anne Hathawaylast summer on the London set of The Dark Knight Rises, where she gave thepaper some insights into her character Catwoman and what's happening in thethird and final installment of director Christopher Nolan's Batman series.

"Gotham City is full of grace," said Hathaway,using a term not often associated with Batman's corrupt and crime-riddenhometown. "You look at Heath's performance as the Joker, there was a lotof madness there but there was also a grace and he had a code there. There's alot of belief and codes of behavior in Gotham and my character has one, too. Alot of the way she moves and interacts with people is informed by herworldview. Chris has given us all such complex, defined, sophisticatedworldviews that it's just a matter of doing your homework and gettingunderneath the character's skin."

Anne Hathaway in-between her transformation to Catwoman

To prepare for her role, Hathaway dove into the comics, andalso studied one of creator Bob Kane's inspirations for Catwoman, sultrybrunette actress Hedy Lemarr. Hathaway was struck by Lamarr's breathing so shestarted to work on her own for playing Selina Kyle.

In a later interview with the Times, Nolan hailed Hathawayas a great "naturalistic" actress who "also has terrifictheatrical skill so she can project a persona and there's a big aspect of thecharacter that is a persona. She's a multi-layered character and we needed agreat actress that could rise to that challenge."