Talia al Ghul (Marion Cotillard)

"Innocent is a strong word to throw around Gotham, Bruce. I honor my father by finishing his work. Vengeance against the man who killed him is simply reward for my patience. You see, it's the slow knife...the knife that takes its time...the knife that waits years without forgetting, and slips quietly between the bones. That's the knife...that cuts deepest."

- Talia al Ghul

Talia al Ghul is the daughter of Ra's al Ghul and leader of the League of Shadows. Following the death of her father, she takes up his mantle as his heir and patiently plots Gotham's destruction while masquerading as wealthy businesswoman Miranda Tate. She was portrayed by Marion Cotillard as an adult and by Joey King as an older child and Harry Coles as a younger child in The Dark Knight Rises.

Early Life
"...No ordinary child. A child born in hell. Forged from suffering. Hardened by pain."

- Prisoner

Talia was born and raised in the Pit. Her mother, the Warlord's daughter, was imprisoned there by the Warlord in place of Talia's father, Ra's al Ghul. One day, when Talia was a young child, the prison doctor forgot to lock their cell and the Warlord's daughter was attacked and killed by a group of prisoners, but Talia was protected by a prisoner named Bane.

"...The child had a friend, a protector, who showed the others that this innocence was their redemption."

- Prisoner

As an older child, she was protected by her friend Bane and climbed out of the Pit, the adrenaline caused by her fear giving her the strength to make the jump required to escape. She then found her father, who went to the Pit with the League of Shadows to enact vengeance for the death of his wife. There, he found Bane after the prisoners and doctor had irreparably damaged him after he helped Talia escape. Both Talia and her protector were then trained in the ways of the League.

The Dark Knight Rises
Ra's saw Bane as a reminder of the Hell he left Talia's mother to die in. Bane was then excommunicated from the League, due to as Talia put it, because he loved her. It was something she could not forgive her father for until he died in his confrontation against Batman during his assault on the Gotham Narrows. She would later on take on the identity of Miranda Tate.

The Philanthropist
"You have to invest if you want to restore balance to the world."

- Talia al Ghul to Bruce Wayne

As Miranda Tate, she became a Wayne Enterprises board member engaged in philanthropic endeavors for Gotham, including charity fundraising. She personally heavily invested in Wayne Enterprises clean energy fusion reactor project. She was described to Bruce Wayne as "quite lovely" by Alfred and Lucius Fox. She persistently tried to meet with Bruce to discuss the clean energy project after he shut down the project for three years, but she was ignored by Bruce until he lost all of his money due to identity theft and bad trades. Bruce feared a takeover of the company by John Daggett and was forced to trust Miranda to keep the project safe or destroy it if need be. She became the new CEO of Wayne Enterprises.

Wayne Manor
"Suffering builds character."

- Talia al Ghul to Bruce Wayne

After Alfred left Bruce, Miranda met him on the doorstep to Wayne Manor in the pouring rain. He led her to another door which he forced open. She told him, "I'll take care of your parents' legacy, Bruce," and began asking about Rachel Dawes and Alfred. Miranda kissed Bruce and the power went out. The pair slept together and started a fire, while Miranda admitted she was not always wealthy. Miranda suggested that they leave Gotham together on her plane, to which he replied, "Someday perhaps. Not tonight," as he'd planned to meet with Selina Kyle to take him to Bane. He was defeated by Bane and sent to the Pit where he learned about the child of Ra's al Ghul, believing it to be Bane.

"An heir to ensure that the League of Shadows fulfills its duty to restore balance to civilization."

- Bruce Wayne's hallucination of Ra's al Ghul

Guiding Events
Soon, a meeting was called by Miranda with a skeptical Lucius Fox to discuss the fusion reactor at Wayne Enterprises, but there Bane was waiting for them in the board room. He and his men dragged them to the bunker where the Wanye Enterprises fusion reactor was held to authorize the reactor with their hand prints. Dr. Pavel, a nuclear physicist kidnapped by Bane, told them the way to create a nuclear bomb out of the reactor was to remove its core, which Bane then did. After Bane took over Gotham, Miranda and the other Wayne Enterprise board members hid with the help of a rag tag group of cops that hoped to free the city, however, Bane and his men found out about the plan and put a stop to it and killed the special forces men who had infiltrated the city. Bane took Lucius hostage as the rest of the board members were sent to exile by Jonathan Crane in a kangaroo court. Miranda assisted Jim Gordon in tracking the bomb truck until both were taken captive. It was later found to be a decoy.

The Reveal
After five months, Bruce finally escaped the Pit and returned to free Gotham. Rallying an army of officers, Batman and the cops attacked Bane and his men. Batman damaged Bane's mask in their confrontation and caused him immense pain. As Batman interrogated him on where the trigger to the bomb resided, Miranda stabbed Batman and revealed her true identity as Talia, the child of Ra's al Ghul, while informing him she was continuing her father's work by destroying the city. Talia repaired Bane's mask and then hit the trigger on her detonator to the bomb, only to discover that her signal was blocked by Gordon. She ordered for a convoy to protect the bomb as it counted down to detonation and left the lobby of Gotham City Hall to be escorted to the bomb truck.

"Kill them. Kill them all."

- Talia al Ghul



Bane was killed by Selina Kyle using the Batpod and she on the Batpod and Batman in the Bat gave chase and dismantled the convoy of Tumblers as they attempted to lead the truck back to the reactor room. Batman fired upon Talia's truck and she swerved off the roadway where the truck fell and she was fatally wounded. Even in death she still believed that her plan to destroy the city that killed her father would come true. Before her death, she revealed to Batman that she had anticipated that he was attempting to lure her back to the generator room so he could hook it up, and she remotely activated the floodgates to ensure that they failed in hooking the bomb back up and thus failed to avert the destruction of Gotham. However, the plan failed as Batman flew the Bat and the bomb over the Gotham bay and let it go where it exploded harmlessly, thus, saving the citizens of Gotham and leaving Talia's death in vain.

Behind the scenes

 * Actress Marion Cotillard was director Christopher Nolan's "immediate" choice for the role of Miranda Tate; she said she was approached while he was writing the screenplay in 2010. However, she did not commit to the film right away because she was pregnant at the time and actresses Naomi Watts, Rachel Weisz, and Kate Winslet were met with and auditioned for the role.
 * Marion Cotillard gave birth to her first child in May 2011 about a month before she began filming.
 * Young actress Leilah de Meza was approached for the role of young Talia but the role was declined.

Trivia

 * Talia does not appear in the film Batman Begins, though she is mentioned in the Journals of Ra's al Ghul in the film's novelization (written by character creator Dennis O'Neil) as residing in Switzerland and she is also mentioned in Ra's al Ghul's character biography in the Blu-ray and DVD special features: "It is little known that Ra's Al Ghul has a child – daughter Talia."
 * Actress India Wadsworth portrays Talia's mother and Ra's al Ghul's wife and is of mixed Chinese heritage, such as Talia's mother has in the comics.
 * She is the first live action portrayal of Talia.
 * There are four incarnations of the character depicted in the film: one as a baby in prison, one as a young child in prison, one as an older child in prison, and one as an adult in Gotham City,