The black mask may connect them, but Michelle Pfeiffer, Halle Berry, Anne Hathaway and Zoë Kravitz arrived at Catwoman through four remarkably different Hollywood stories.

One inherited the role after another actress unexpectedly had to walk away. One starred in a Catwoman movie without actually playing Selina Kyle. Another spent days preparing for the wrong villain before learning what Christopher Nolan really wanted. And the most recent big-screen Selina Kyle had once been unable to get an audition for a much smaller role in an earlier Batman film.

Across three decades, the character kept changing — and so did the strange circumstances surrounding the women who stepped into her world.

Michelle Pfeiffer Got the Role After Annette Bening Had to Drop Out

For many viewers, Michelle Pfeiffer’s stitched black catsuit in 1992’s Batman Returns is still one of the defining images of Catwoman.

But it almost belonged to someone else.

Annette Bening had originally been cast as Selina Kyle opposite Michael Keaton in Tim Burton’s sequel. The process had advanced far enough that Bening later recalled being measured for the costume. Then she became pregnant and withdrew from the production. The sudden change opened the door for Pfeiffer, who ultimately took over the role.

It turned into one of those casting accidents that becomes difficult to imagine any other way years later.

Pfeiffer’s Selina begins as a nervous secretary before transforming into the unpredictable, whip-wielding Catwoman, giving the character a mix of vulnerability, rage, humor and danger. The performance became so closely associated with the role that discussions eventually began about giving Pfeiffer her own Catwoman movie, although that project never came together.

Decades later, Pfeiffer has continued to speak warmly about the experience. In 2026, she described playing Catwoman as a “dream come true,” while reflecting on how physical and practical the production felt compared with modern effects-heavy superhero filmmaking.

Bening’s unexpected exit had changed Batman history.

Halle Berry Was Catwoman — But She Wasn’t Selina Kyle

Twelve years later, Hollywood tried something completely different.

When Halle Berry starred in 2004’s Catwoman, audiences might reasonably have assumed she was playing another version of Selina Kyle.

She wasn’t.

Berry played Patience Phillips, an original character working for a cosmetics company who is killed after discovering a dangerous corporate secret and subsequently revived with cat-like abilities. The film was deliberately separated from Batman’s world rather than functioning as another Selina Kyle story.

That makes Berry unusual among the most famous movie actresses associated with the Catwoman name: she wore the costume and carried a film literally titled Catwoman, but her civilian identity was not the woman comic readers had known for decades.

Berry entered the project from an extraordinary position in her career. In 2002, she had become the first Black woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress, for Monster’s Ball. She later recalled being warned against following an Oscar win with a comic-book movie, but saw the project as an opportunity for a woman of color to lead a superhero film.

The gamble did not work as intended.

Catwoman was met with harsh reviews and disappointing box-office results. At the 2005 Golden Raspberry Awards, it won four prizes, including Worst Picture and Worst Actress. Berry did something most stars would have avoided completely: she showed up herself.

Even more memorably, she brought her Oscar.

Holding the Academy Award in one hand and her Razzie in the other, Berry delivered a deliberately exaggerated acceptance speech that mocked both the film and her own sudden reversal of fortune. She later explained that she had carefully planned the appearance as a way of laughing along with the criticism rather than hiding from it.

Twenty years later, her view of the movie had softened considerably. Berry said she remembered how hard everyone worked, enjoyed making it and refused to allow the backlash to derail her career.

Anne Hathaway Prepared for Harley Quinn — Then Nolan Told Her It Was Catwoman

Anne Hathaway’s road to Selina Kyle involved a very different problem: she arrived prepared for the wrong character.

Before The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan kept details of his production characteristically guarded. Hathaway knew she was meeting the director about a role, but she became convinced that he was considering her for Harley Quinn.

So she prepared accordingly.

Hathaway has recalled spending about a week developing an intense Harley-inspired persona and even choosing clothes that fit what she imagined the character might be. Only well into her conversation with Nolan did he reveal the truth: the part was Catwoman.

Suddenly, Hathaway had to change gears in the room.

She later joked about how quickly her entire personality shifted once she understood that Nolan was talking about Selina Kyle. Looking back, Hathaway suggested that the abrupt transformation may even have helped her because Selina herself is something of a social chameleon.

Hathaway ultimately became Nolan’s Selina opposite Christian Bale in the trilogy-ending The Dark Knight Rises in 2012 — twenty years after Pfeiffer’s version had appeared on screen.

Zoë Kravitz Couldn’t Get a Small Batman Audition — Then Became Selina Kyle

Zoë Kravitz’s story forms perhaps the most striking full-circle arc of the four.

Around the time The Dark Knight Rises was being cast, Kravitz sought an audition for a small role in the film. She later said she was told the production was not “going urban” for the part, wording she found painful and frustrating as a woman of color trying to build her career.

There is an important distinction in that story.

Kravitz later clarified that she was not trying to audition for Catwoman and had never claimed that she was rejected from playing Selina Kyle. She also said she did not know exactly who had used the phrase and did not intend to accuse Nolan or specific members of the production of racism. Her point, she explained, was about the kind of language she encountered in the industry at the time.

Then Hollywood changed around her.

Kravitz actually voiced Catwoman in 2017’s The Lego Batman Movie. Five years later, Matt Reeves cast her as the live-action Selina Kyle opposite Robert Pattinson in The Batman.

For the 2022 film, Kravitz studied the movements of cats and lions and worked with martial arts and capoeira-inspired choreography to build a fighting style based more on speed and agility than brute strength. She described the movie as the beginning of Selina discovering who she could become.

A decade after she could not get into the room for a minor Batman role, she had become one of the central figures in Gotham.

That may be the most fitting thing about Catwoman’s movie history: there has never been just one path into the catsuit.

Pfeiffer arrived because another actress had to leave. Berry carried the Catwoman name while playing someone other than Selina Kyle. Hathaway prepared for Harley Quinn before discovering Nolan’s real plan. Kravitz went from being unable to audition for a small Batman role to playing Selina herself.

Four actresses. Four eras. Four completely different Hollywood stories.

After knowing their stories, who is your Catwoman — Pfeiffer, Berry, Hathaway or Kravitz?