Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Sacha Baron Cohen

Last week some interesting news emerged from the Hollywood casting couch, and although I’m a tad late here’s a quick recap of the two biggest announcements.

Speculation finally ended over which villains will appear in Christopher Nolan’s next Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises (the title, some wags have squawked, is a reference to Batman’s affection for muffins and cakes, ho ho)  with Warner Bros announcing that Anne Hathaway has been cast as Catwoman and Tom Hardy (of Bronson fame) as Bane. Bane is a lesser-known villain who, in the annals of comic book lore, “broke the bat” in 1993.

The name “Catwoman” was conspicuously absent in WB’s press release, which identified the character by her “real” identity, Selina Kyle. The last big screen incarnation of the feisty feline fiend was far from purr-fect: Halle Berry slipped into dominatrix garb and threw her cred in the kitty litter in 2004’s dire Catwoman (2004).

There was also another big announcement regarding Sacha Baron Cohen, the irreverent comedian who will play – wait for it – Saddam Hussein in a political comedy called The Dictator. The film will be directed by Larry Charles, marking his third consecutive collaboration with Cohen after Borat (2006) and Bruno (2009).