Anne Hathaway will Be Cat WomanSeems the tight-fisted grip Christopher Nolan usually keeps on his productions has loosened slightly with the word (from the feline's mouth) that Anne Hathaway will be playing Catwoman, and not just Selena Kyle in Nolan's next installment in the Batman oeuvre, The Dark Knight Rises.

Warner Bros. announced last month that the Devil Wears Prada star would step in as the female lead in The Dark Knight Rises in the role of Selena Kyle who Batman comic book aficionados also know as Batman's antihero and occasional love interest, Catwoman. Nowhere in the carefully worded announcement was it stated that Hathaway would depict Catwoman however, sparking rumors and grand speculation as to what the omission of that single word actually meant.

Well, looks like we can now move the speculation meter over towards trying to figure out in what capacity she'll play Catwoman, and what "playing Catwoman" in a Nolan film actually means. During her pre-Oscar-host Oprah Show appearance, Hathaway confirmed she'll indeed be playing Catwoman. During the interview, when asked about how she got invited to host the Academy Awards presentation, she kind of spilled the beans. Here's what she said:

"Do you want to know the real story? I’ve never told the real story. […] So the real story is, I was waiting back to hear if I’d been cast as Catwoman. And my manager called me and said, ‘Are you sitting down?’ She’s like, ‘You’re about to hear something you will never hear again in your whole life.’ I’m like, okay. And she goes, ‘You’ve been asked to host the Oscars!’ [And] I’m like, I’m Catwoman! [Wait, w]hat?!”

Still a bit cryptic and a little too off-the-cuff to cut too much meat from it, but it could be that she's just not totally informed about the Selena Kyle/Catwoman dynamic, but then again, she wouldn't know to call herself Catwoman if she were just told she's got the Selena Kyle role. Since this is Nolan's last film in the Batman series, it makes perfect sense that she will indeed in some way don the slick black suit and flick her claws for the camera. Can't wait to see what Nolan has in mind for the character.

Christopher Nolan will direct the film, which he says will be his last in the franchise, from a screenplay he wrote with Jonathan Nolan. The movie is is slated for a July 20, 2012 release.

Here's a brief clip from the Oprah Winfrey interview to see the "slip" for yourself: