By Ron Wynn
NASHVILLE, TN — Despite some initial fears. Zoe Kravitz is getting rave reviews for her role as Selina Kyle and her Catwoman alter ego in Matt Reeves’s “The Batman,” which opened last week to a $112 million plus debut. But the actress acknowledges that her DC debut came about a decade later than anticipated. She told the British publication The Observer that she was passed over for a role in 2012’s “The Dark Knight Rises,” the final installment in director Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. Kravitz, who is biracial, said she was turned down for an audition because she was considered to be too “urban.”
“I don’t know if it came directly from Chris Nolan,” Kravitz said. “I think it was probably a casting director of some kind, or a casting director’s assistant.” She didn’t specify which role she’d had her eye on in the 2012 film, which ultimately starred Marion Cotillard, Anne Hathaway and future “Ted Lasso” actress Juno Temple in a small supporting part.
“Being a woman of color and being an actor and being told at that time that I wasn’t able to read because of the color of my skin, and the word urban being thrown around like that, that was what was really hard about that moment,” the 33-year-old said. Kravitz also said she’s gotten some advice from her actress mom Lisa Bonet on dealing with rejections within the industry. Bonet and dad Lenny Kravitz, both of whom are also biracial, have also encouraged their daughter to celebrate her individuality.
“They both dealt with being artists who didn’t act or dress or look or sound the way a Black person was supposed to act in terms of what white people specifically were comfortable with,” Kravitz told the Observer, adding that her parents were “focused on trying to make sure I understood that despite the color of my skin I should be able to act or dress or do whatever it is I want to do.”
Now the face of YSL Beauté, Kravitz struggled with her looks, and her identity, growing up. Her perspective shifted, she said, when she began to better appreciate what the women in her own family — from her mother dealing with racist abuse girl in the 1970s, to her paternal grandmother, the late “Jeffersons” actress Roxie Roker, being one-half of the first interracial couple depicted on primetime TV.
“I felt really insecure about my hair, relaxing it, putting chemicals in it, plucking my eyebrows really thin,” she shared. “I was uncomfortable with my Blackness. It took me a long time to not only accept it but to love it and want to scream it from the rooftops.”
These days, Kravitz gravitates toward roles that aren’t strictly about race, citing her turn as Bonnie on Big Little Lies, which “was originally written for a white person.” “At one point, all the scripts that were being sent were about the first Black woman to make a muffin or something,” Kravitz added. “Even though those stories are important to tell, I also want to open things up for myself as an artist.”
