Marion Cotillard Claims Her ‘Dark Knight Rises’ Role is ‘A Secret’

Recently it was announced that Academy Award-winning actress Marion Cotillard has joined the cast of Chris Nolan’s third (and presumably final) Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises. In the official press release, Cotillard’s character was described as “Miranda Tate, a member on the board for Wayne Enterprises who will aid Bruce Wayne on his ‘philanthropic endeavors for Gotham.’”

Now, some people are easily cowed and at once thought “Oh, I guess that’s who Cotillard will be playing.” – but not us here at Screen Rant! And today, we (sort of) have further evidence that the actress’ role may not be what it initially seems.

SIDENOTE: A few days ago I reported on a quote from actor Denis Leary regarding The Amazing Spider-Man‘s ending. A lot of people read that post and had the reaction that I was reading too far into things/over-analyzing (at best), or reporting “non-news as news” (at worst). Let me be clear about something: digging deep into every little tidbit of movie news – especially comic book movie news – is what I do. If I had to wait until a suit confirmed what we fans wanted to know, or wait until I was in a theater seat to learn the twists and turns a movie was going to throw at us…there’d be no point to my job, or me doing it.

I say all that to say: take the following assessment however you will, but I’m going to dive deep into the matter and give you my best analysis. Again, JUST MY OPINION, TAKE IT HOW YOU WILL:

In a recent interview with 24 Frames, Marion Cotillard was quizzed about The Dark Knight Rises and gave the following evasive answer:

“My role is a secret, as is the whole project.”

Some people are going to read that and respond with the easy answer of “Dude, she can’t talk about the project, that’s all she’s saying!” and that is all well and good. But I’m not buying it. We here at Screen Rant have always maintained that Cotillard will likely play Talia al Ghul, daughter of Ra’s al Ghul, the villain played by Liam Neeson in Batman Begins. We know that Nolan intends to tie The Dark Knight Rises back to Batman Begins, storywise, and having Talia come in to finish her father’s work – and erase the stain of chaos left by The Joker in The Dark Knight – was always seen by us as a logical way to accomplish that goal.

Of course, the inclusion of Talia would be as obvious as it was logical, and to that end it makes sense that Nolan would want to throw fans off the scent, having us believe that TDKR will focus on Catwoman and Bane (Anne Hathaway and Tom Hardy, respectively) as the primary antagonists. However, we’ve known for some time that Batman 3 will feature two female leads (presumably two love interests), so a Batman/Catwoman/Talia triangle (with Bane thrown in as a suitor for Talia) was not only possible, but A) Fitting  B) In keeping with several Batman comic book storylines C)More and more likely, the more we learn about the film.

Again: I know people are still going to accuse me of “reading into nothing” and there will inevitably be some “Slow news day?” jokes that get cracked at our expense. But if Cotillard’s “Miranda Tate” role is ultimately revealed to be little more than a mask for a more sinister character, don’t worry: we’re not the type of site to say “Toldja So!” .

The Dark Knight Rises in theaters on July 20, 2012.

Source: 24 Frames