Tom Hardy Based His Version of Bane on Christopher Nolan

It’s no secret that when writers put pen to paper, or fingers to the keyboard, they put something of themselves in their characters that end up going out into the world. To the casual viewer this isn’t always an obvious choice, and sometimes it’s not even intentional for the person that created them. In the case of Christopher Nolan however, some of his characters do appear to dress and act strikingly just like him. Speaking with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Nolan was asked by the host about the characters played by Leonardo DiCaprio in Inception and Robert Pattinson in Tenet have a style that could be called “Nolan-esque,” and though he denies any intention there he confirms a very different actor based their character on him for one of their collaborations.

“I’ve been teased about it in the past,” Nolan said. “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.

Nolan went on to open up about working with Hardy on the film, saying he believes that even eight years after the film’s release that the appreciation for Hardy’s performance 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.”

The Dark Knight Rises, and its Chris Nolan influenced Bane, can be streamed on AMC.