Actor Tom Hardy is currently Sony’s Eddie Brock a.k.a Venom, but his stint with superheroes started with Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises. The British actor played Bane in the climatic film of Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy and was a formidable foe who broke the Batman. Hardy had previously worked with Nolan on Inception.
Nolan’s films have always featured actors in small roles who would go on to be future stars. Actors like Timothée Chalamet and Barry Keoghan had small roles in films made by the maverick filmmaker. Hit Man star Glen Powell too had a short role in The Dark Knight Rises in a scene where he was hit in the head by Hardy’s Bane.
Tom Hardy’s Strength As Bane Dazed Glen Powell
When Christopher Nolan decided to make The Dark Knight Rises, he reportedly wanted an antagonist who would be a physical threat to Batman as opposed to the psychological games played by the Joker (via Empire). The filmmaker chose Tom Hardy, who he worked with on Inception. Hardy reportedly gained 30 pounds for the role of Bane (via The Daily Blam).
Bane is a prisoner trained by the League of Shadows. But unlike Bruce Wayne, who was also trained by the League, Bane was excommunicated by the leader Ra’s al Ghul. In The Dark Knight Rises, he targets Gotham and stages a coup, intending to destroy the city. One of the most pivotal scenes in the film involves an economic terrorist attack by his gang.
Top Gun: Maverick’s Glen Powell had a short role in the film, playing a trader in the stock market heist sequence. The actor is seen briefly standing up to Bane before being bashed unconscious. According to Powell, the actors did a couple of takes before nailing the scene in one particularly hurtful take. He said in an interview with IMDb,
And, you know, Tom Hardy is not a weak man. He’s a force. And he’s supposed to give me a little bit of a tap on the back of the head. So we did it a few times. We all nail it. It was great. And then this last time, you know, I think we all just got kind of caught up in it, and he just slammed my head on the keyboard. And I remember just, like, getting kind of dazed.
And Chris Nolan was, like, ‘That was perfect, Glen’. I was like, ‘Yeah, I think I hit my head pretty hard on the keyboard’. And then Wally Pfister, who’s really funny, was like, ‘Dude, I don’t think I was pressing record’. And Chris looked at me, he’s like, ‘You think you can do it again just like that?’ I was like, ‘Absolutely’. He’s like, ‘We’re kidding. Go see the medic.’
Glen Powell then went on to talk about how it was a great opportunity for him and how the whole experience was unforgettable.
Glen Powell Did Not Get The Whole Script For Christopher Nolan’s Film
Christopher Nolan’s films are known to be extremely secretive. The filmmaker is known to save his labyrinthian scripts from being leaked by personally hand-delivering them to lead actors and waiting till they finish reading. Many actors have also revealed how he protects copies from being made by printing them on red paper (via EW).
Glen Powell reportedly had a similar experience when he was auditioning for the role in The Dark Knight Rises. The actor mentioned that he had to do several rounds of auditions, after which he was only given his scenes to practice instead of the whole script. He said to IMDb,
I didn’t end up getting– ever got– get the whole script. You’re only getting your sides. And you don’t get a chance to take them home. You’re just reading them in a room on red paper so that you can’t copy it, and you can’t take pictures of it, and there’s somebody watching you read it. So I was just like, OK, ‘What is this scene?’
And I’d kind of like, look at the lines and try to like to memorize them…So then you take that home and you kind of, like, process it, and you kind of do your thing where you’re trying to understand this character–but you really don’t have a full picture of things.
Nolan has also been known to ban phones on his set with no photography allowed. According to IndieWire, one member of the costume department almost got fired for taking a photo of the costumes on the sets of Dunkirk.
The Dark Knight Rises is available to stream on Max.
