Marion Cotillard is owning up to her infamous death scene in The Dark Knight Rises—the one that fans have been mocking for years. In a recent interview with Les rencontres du Papotin, the Oscar-winning actress admitted that she didn’t quite nail the moment.
“I didn’t get it right,” Cotillard confessed. “I couldn’t find the right position, the right way to do it… I was stressed.”
For those who need a refresher, the scene in question happens near the end of Christopher Nolan’s 2012 Batman blockbuster. Cotillard’s character, Talia al Ghul, delivers her final words—“My father’s work is done”—before dramatically collapsing in a way that many viewers found stiff, unnatural, and, well… awkward.
The performance quickly became the subject of fan criticism and internet memes. Many argued that her exaggerated movements took away from what should have been an emotional moment in the film.
This isn’t the first time Cotillard has addressed the backlash. In a 2016 interview with Allociné, she acknowledged the awkwardness of the scene, saying, “Sometimes there are failures, and when you see it on screen, you think: ‘Why? Why did they keep that take?’”
That said, she also felt that the criticism was blown out of proportion. “Either you blame everyone or nobody,” she added. “But I thought people overreacted because it was tough to be identified just with this scene.”
Despite the controversy, The Dark Knight Rises was a massive success, raking in over $1 billion at the box office and cementing itself as the grand finale to Nolan’s iconic Batman trilogy. Cotillard played Talia al Ghul, the secret mastermind behind Bane’s attack on Gotham. And while her death scene remains a point of debate, it didn’t take away from the film’s overall impact.
At least now, we know that Cotillard herself isn’t pretending it never happened!