Zoë Kravitzsays she was denied a part in a previousBatmanmovie because of the color of her skin.

The 33-year-old actress, who plays Catwoman/Selina Kyle in the new movieThe Batman, recalled toThe Observerhow she intended to audition for a role in the 2012 sequelThe Dark Knight Risesbut was turned down because she was deemed too “urban” for the film.

“I don’t know if it came directly from Chris Nolan. I think it was probably a casting director of some kind, or a casting director’s assistant. … Being a woman of color and being an actor and being told at that time that I wasn’t able to read because of the color of my skin, and the word urban being thrown around like that, that was what was really hard about that moment,” said Kravitz.

The star added that she has come to realize how to see the positive in rejections: “Even though it’s sometimes hard to see that in the moment, usually a few years later, you’re like, ‘Okay,thisis why this didn’t happen.’ "

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Zoe Kravitz Robert Pattinson

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She also told The Observer that “at one point, all the scripts that were being sent were about the first Black woman to make a muffin or something. Even though those stories are important to tell, I also want to open things up for myself as an artist.”

TheBig Little Liesstar said her parents Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet “broke down boundaries in a lot of ways” as they “both dealt with being artists who didn’t act or dress or look or sound the way a Black person was supposed to act in terms of what white people specifically were comfortable with.”

“I was uncomfortable with my Blackness. It took me a long time to not only accept it but to love it and want to scream it from the rooftops,” she said, adding that her famous parents “focused on trying to make sure I understood that despite the color of my skin I should be able to act or dress or do whatever it is I want to do.”

The Batmanis now in theaters.

source: people.com