Kate Beckinsale Reveals How Close She Got To Playing Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman finally made her way to the big screen thanks to Gal Gadot, but the character's journey to theaters was not an easy one, with many, many stops and starts along the way. Those years of work resulted in quite a few actresses being rumored for the part over the years, with one of the primary candidates being Kate Beckinsale. The actress revealed in a recent interview with Yahoo! Movies that she was, at one point, talking to people about the part, but she didn't feel the script was up to par.

Beckinsale was rumored to be playing Diana Prince in the mid-2000s, when Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Joss Whedon was developing the film. Although she repeatedly denied her attachment to the part, people kept on talking about it. "I get texted from friends all around the world saying, 'That's so awesome! I'm so happy for you. That's so great,' and I have to just text them and say, 'It's actually not true,'" Beckinsale told MTV News in 2006 about the rumors.

As it turns out, there may have been at least some truth to them, as Beckinsale told Yahoo! that she at least read the script for the movie. "But the incarnations that I was seeing were..." she said, before trailing off, possibly reinforcing Internet criticism of a reported script of Whedon's take on the character that surfaced online this year. "They weren't this one," she said, referencing the 2017 version.

Beckinsale's name started coming up for the part after she broke out playing Selene in the Underworld series, and she says that that character may have also played a part in why she wasn't interested in joining the superhero flick. "I don't know if I was desperate to be in a leotard," she said. "I'd already done the rubber trousers. You have to take in that you have a child at some point and how much could you possibly embarrass them."

Although she never got to play Wonder Woman, Beckinsale did say that she's a fan of the character's standalone movie and how many doors it has opened for female heroines. "You know, Wonder Woman smacked everybody at the box office," she said. "That's normal to [my daughter's generation] and that feels like a short period of time for quite a big change. It's nice to have been part of moving that needle. It's nice to have that."