Here’s one to take with a big pile of salt, if only because it’s starting to seem that every time Tom Hardy is rumoured for a movie, a while later someone has to come along with an unconfirmed rumour that Charlize Theron is involved too. Last week the future Mad Max: Fury Road co-stars were said to be teaming up for Snow White and the Huntsman, and now they may both be in The Dark Knight Rises.
CBM quotes an unspecified agency source who says that Theron has been offered the role of Sarah Essen in the movie. They also suggest Kacie Thomas and Vera Farmiga have both auditioned for the part of Julie Harding. Neither of those are well known names from the comics, and if we are to believe they’ll appear in the movie, it suggests Chris Nolan is beefing up the female presence in Batman 3, following criticism of the male domination of parts 1 and 2.
Sarah Essen was invented in the comics for Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli Batman: Year One storyline, where she had a brief affair with Jim Gordon, and later became his wife. Julie Madison meanwhile has a much longer history in the Batman comics, and was engaged to Bruce Wayne not long after the Caped Crusader first appeared. She’s been reinvented several time over the years, but if she is in The Dark Knight Rises, it would suggest she’ll be a replacement for Rachel Dawes as the romantic lead.
However, there’s absolutely nothing official on these characters appearing in The Dark Knight Rises, or that these actresses are even vaguely involved, and as just about every character who’s ever appeared in the Batman comics has been rumoured for this movie at some point, don’t take it as gospel that any of this will turn out to be true.