These latest
rumors (not looking like the most iron clad of sources) concern the ladies in Gotham City. Supposedly,
Charlize Theron is up for the role of Sarah Essen and
Vera Farmiga (from
The Departed and
Up In The Air) and
Kacie Thomas (from nothing that even sounds familiar) are being looked at for Julie Madison.
Sarah Essen (pictured) first appeared in the comics in
Batman: Year One in 1987. She's a detective in the Gotham City PD and Jim Gordon's partner, but soon they develop a romantic relationship. Gordon was already married, so he breaks it off and Sarah accepts a transfer out of Gotham. Comics being what they are, they love to bring characters back, so eventually Gordon's marriage falls apart, Sarah comes back, and they ended up married. Then Gotham had an earthquake and the Joker killed her. I suspect most of that stuff would not happen in a movie, but if she is a character in
The Dark Knight Rises, she'll be a cop and there will be some sexual tension with Gordon.
Julie Madison goes back to 1941, and is the first of Batman's major love interests. She's a socialite and aspiring actress who was engaged to Bruce Wayne for some time. She was involved in early stories of both
The Monk and
Clayface. She then basically disappeared for 60 years (though Elle MacPherson played her in a very small part in
Batman & Robin (the George Clooney one)) before being resurrected by writer/artist Matt Wagner in
Batman and the Monster Men and
Batman and the Mad Monk.
More on
Julie Madison and
Sarah Essen at wikipedia.
Teresa Palmer was at one point cast to play Talia al-Ghul in a Justice League movie that was scrapped partly because of the Writers' Guild strike a few years back. Now, she wants to play Talia in The Dark Knight Rises, and to add to the conflicting rumors floating around for the past few weeks, the way she phrases things makes it sound like she has reason to believe Talia will be a character in the film. Or at least Bleeding Cool thinks so.
In what might be a contradiction of previous rumors about Julie Madison and Sarah Essen, Christopher Nolan is supposedly meeting with six actresses for two roles in The Dark Knight Rises: Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts, Blake Lively, Natalie Portman, Anne Hathaway and Keira Knightley. One role is a love interest for Bruce Wayne, the other a villain. I would be perfectly comfortable with any of those actresses except for Blake Lively. She's extremely attractive, but I've yet to see her show off any kind of acting ability. Plus she's already in a DC movie as Carol Ferris in Green Lantern. 
