The upcoming issue of Empire magazine is really something to check out for, especially with two separate front covers that features Tom Hardy's Bane and Christian Bale's Batman. But wait, there's more! In the article, director Christopher Nolan also reveals that the story picks up eight years after the event of THE DARK KNIGHT (2008).
It's really all about finishing Batman and Bruce Wayne's story. We left him in a very precarious place. Perhaps surprisingly for some people, our story picks up quite a bit later, eight years after 'The Dark Knight.' So he's an older Bruce Wayne; he's not in a great state. With Bane, we're looking to give Batman a challenge he hasn't had before. With our choice of villain and with our choice of story we're testing Batman both physically as well as mentally.
In the meantime, Tom Hardy reveals about his character as Bane in the movie.
Bane is brutal. He's a big dude who's incredibly clinical, in the fact that he has a result-based and oriented fighting style. It's not about fighting. It's about carnage. The style is heavy-handed, heavy-footed, it's nasty. Anything from small-joint manipulation to crushing skulls, crushing rib cages, stamping on shins and knees and necks and collarbones and snapping heads off and tearing his fists through chests, ripping out spinal columns. He is a terrorist in mentality as well as brutal action.
Last but not least, costume designer Lindy Hemming talked about Bane's mask in the movie.
He was injured early in his story. He's suffering from pain and needs gas to survive. He can't survive the pain without the mask. The pipes from the mask go back along his jawline and feed into the thing at his back, where there are two canisters.
