Tom Hardy Based His Performance of Bane in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES on Christopher Nolan

Tom Hardy’s portrayal of Bane in The Dark Knight Rises was an interesting, different, and unique take on the character. There were a lot of mixed reactions from the fans, many of them didn’t like the fact that it was hard to understand what he was saying.

Well, you might find it interesting that Hardy based his performance on director Christopher Nolan. While Speaking with the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Nolan was asked about the characters played by Leonardo DiCaprio in Inception and Robert Pattinson in Tenet and how they are said to have a style similar to Nolan. While he denies any intention of giving these characters a "Nolan-esque" style, he does confirm that Hardy based Bane on him. Here’s what Nolan said:

“I’ve been teased about it in the past. Funnily enough I think there are, whether you’re looking at Kyle MacLachlan with David Lynch in Blue Velvet who does his collar up, I think there is a slightly mischievous tendency on the part of actors to see in the filmmakers where as a writer, particularly writer/directors, were able to put a bit of themselves into something and then build on that. Tom Hardy maintains that Bane is somehow based on me, but in Tom’s mind there’s some very complex interweaving of impulses and influences that somehow I have a voice in. I think it’s certainly not conscious on my part, I think Rob with Neil we talked about a lot of different influences on that character, none of which were me.

I would have never thought that Hardy based his version of Bane on Nolan, but, now we know and I guess if we look really hard we might be able to see it? Nolan went to talk about working with Hardy on the film, saying he believes Hardy's performance still hasn't been fully grasped by the public:

"There’s no safety net for any of these guys and Tom, I mean what he did with that character has yet to be fully appreciated. It’s an extraordinary performance, and truly amazing. The voice, the relationship between just seeing the eyes and the brow. We had all these discussions about the mask and what it would reveal and what it wouldn’t reveal, and one of the things I remember him saying to me, he sort of put his finger up to his temple and his eyebrow and said ‘Can you give me this to play with? Let people see this.’ Sure enough you see there in the film, this kind of Brando-esque brow, expressing all kinds of just monstrous things. It’s really quite a performance."

What did you think about Hardy’s performance as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises? Did you think he was awesome in the role or lackluster?