WRITER’S NOTE: This article was written in 2012.

With “The Dark Knight Rises,” we need to look at its actors more closely. In this chapter, all eyes are on Tom Hardy who is playing Bane, the mysterious and physically imposing revolutionary who was excommunicated from the League of Shadows but still intent on completing Ra’s al Ghul’s legacy by destroying Gotham. The question, however, is not whether Bane will be a more memorable villain than the Joker, but of how Hardy transformed himself into this brutal character and made him his own in the process. “Inception” and “This Means War” showed him as being physically average for his age, but his role as Bane has him portraying a massive tank of a human being who maims, if not outright kills, those who attempt to defy him and his ultimate plan.

Now Hardy is no stranger to transforming himself for a role as he did so for Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Bronson” in which he portrayed one of the world’s most dangerous criminals who spent almost his entire life in solitary confinement. But here, he is playing a character made famous in comic books for learning to be a brutal fighter. Bane ended up serving the life sentence meant for his father, and he became the one who defeated Batman in the worst way possible.

To prepare for the role, Hardy gained 30 pounds and learned various fighting styles to use in “The Dark Knight Rises.” The actor also described Bane as an “absolute terrorist,” and “brutal,” but also “incredibly clinical in the fact that he has a result-based and oriented fighting style. The style is heavy-handed, heavy-footed… it’s nasty. It’s not about fighting, it’s about carnage!”

Surprisingly though, when Hardy first learned about the origins of Bane, he thought he was the wrong actor to play him. It was through Nolan’s interpretation of the Batman universe, however, which convinced Hardy he could play this role effectively.

“Chris Nolan’s take on [Bane] was intrinsically lateral because he has a way of wanting and desiring to breathe a realism and a lateral thought into that which has already come through the comic book world. I think largely that’s going to upset some people, and there are some people that are going to really hang on to that. And I’m one of those people that really enjoys that actually, to be quite honest – carving a new way through something that’s already a set piece on the planet.”

As for Bane’s accent, Hardy found inspiration in Bartley Gorman who was the undefeated bare-knuckle boxing champion of the United Kingdom and Ireland. Hardy ended up describing him in more detail:

“The choice of the accent is actually a man called Bartley Gorman, who was a bare-knuckle fighter. A Romani gypsy. I wanted to underpin the Latin, but a Romani Latin opposed to Latino. His particular accent is very specific, which was a gypsy accent. So that’s why it was difficult to understand. But once you tune into it, you get it. I hope.”

Clearly a lot of thought went into preparing this role, so it should go without saying Nolan picked the right actor to portray Bane. While it is easy to say Hardy’s interpretation of this character easily bests Robert Swenson’s in “Batman & Robin,” it is also a testament to how great an actor he truly is. Whether or not his performance compares favorably to Heath Ledger’s Joker in “The Dark Knight,” his portrayal of Bane is will never be easily forgotten once you leave the movie theater.

SOURCES:

“The Dark Knight Rises” IMDB trivia page

Kevin P. Sullivan, “Dark Knight Rises Star Tom Hardy Worried He Was ‘Wrong’ For Bane,” MTV.com, July 18, 2012.

Josh Wilding, “TDKR: Tom Hardy Reveals That Bane’s Accent Is Based On ‘The King of the Gypsies,’” comicbookmovie.com, July 17, 2012.