Tom Hardy

by James Haydock

  Tom would once again have to beef up big time to transform into Bane. And, once again, Pnut would be by his side, helping him to build muscle in all the right places. For Warrior, Tom had bolstered his muscles to such an extent that he weighed 179 pounds. For Bane, he upped his body mass even more and weighed in at 190 pounds. He wanted to grow as big as he possibly could to try and live up to fans’ expectations of the enormous hulk. Those fans apparently would have loved Bane to be 400 pounds, as per his comic book incarnation, but this was just a bit too much of a stretch for poor Tom. Even the king of transformation has his limits!

  Of course, for Tom, the transformation wasn’t purely physical. Christopher Nolan knew that he was an actor easily talented enough to take on all the challenges that playing a villain such as Bane presented. For a start, he would have to wear a mask which, as well as being uncomfortable, would conceal a lot of his face and therefore a great deal of facial expression would be lost. ‘I felt that if I could get somebody as talented as Tom to agree to hide himself in the character I would get something very special,’ Nolan told Empire magazine. He went on to compliment the way in which Tom can play a big brute of a character, but is still able to pull back those raw characteristics when he needs to. ‘He’s found a way to play a character who is enormous and powerful with a sort of calm to it.’ To those familiar with Tom’s acting this would come as no surprise – he has shown time and again that he will always find a way to portray the light and shade in any character he plays.

  Aware of the fans’ insatiable appetite for information about the film, the press were keen to run any stories associated with it as they knew whatever they printed would be devoured hungrily. One angle they seemed to like was constantly publishing pictures of Tom’s ever-expanding physique leading up to and during shooting of the film: there were photos of Tom arriving on US soil and even photos of him ‘showing off his bulging biceps’ whilst out shopping in LA.

  It wouldn’t be too long before fans were given a small concession to their curiosity. In May 2011, the internet was abuzz with news of an official ‘leaked’ photo of Tom Hardy as his Bane character. The week prior, the official Dark Knight Rises website had been launched and had mysteriously consisted of a black screen and some background chanting noise. While some may have thought there was a glitch with the site, clever fans figured out that if the noise was played through a programme that can visualise audio files, it would display a Twitter hashtag. Fans who tweeted the hashtag then found that their Twitter avatars were used to build a mosaic on the website which, when complete, revealed the Bane photograph. The first reaction was that fans had got the better of website security and leaked the photos, but it was in fact an extraordinarily clever viral marketing campaign on the part of Nolan and Warner Bros.

  The photo was the first glimpse of a new character from The Dark Knight Rises and, though not especially revealing, was atmospheric. The image showed Tom as Bane, photographed from behind, with his head turned about 90 degrees back over his shoulder so that you can just make out Bane’s mask, shaved head and some of Tom’s facial features. The huge expanse of back and shoulder on display gives a good idea of just how vast and imposing this villain is going to be. His elbow also appears to be resting on a wide, powerful-looking leg. It wasn’t much to go on but it did the trick and started to build excitement on fansites and in the press. The Independent newspaper noted that Warner Bros had used a similar campaign when promoting The Dark Knight in 2007, ahead of its 2008 release. ‘For more than 14 months, fans were encouraged to participate in a series of interactive marketing exercises designed to promote the film, including: sending emails, submitting photographs and joining scavenger hunts. When the film eventually did screen in the US in July 2008, it smashed the box office record for the biggest opening day and the biggest opening week.’ Whether the phenomenal success at the box office was helped by the marketing campaign is open to debate but there’s no doubt these interactive tools, while not giving much away, help the fans to feel a little bit of ownership towards the film.

  It was probably also a wise move to do the Bane ‘reveal’ at this point as, when shooting got underway, it was inevitable that some photos of the cast in their costumes would find their way out into the press – and indeed they did.

  Shooting for The Dark Knight Rises took place at a variety of locations. Early on in the shooting schedule, location filming took place in Jodhpur in India and from there the cast and crew went briefly to London to film at the Farmiloe Building on St John Street in Clerkenwell, which had been used as Gotham City police station in both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Nottingham’s Tudor mansion, Wollaton Hall, was also used as a location, which brought some unexpected benefits. In preparation for filming, the production company paid for The Great Hall and the Entrance Hall to be redecorated and regilded. My Nottingham website also revealed that: ‘A number of windows at the back of the property were specially wood-grained, and a new carpet is currently being woven for the Salon to replace the old 1980s carpet, which was removed for filming.’

  Then, for 18 days in August 2011, the cast and crew were to be found in Pittsburgh. They shot at various locations around the city and residents were told to be prepared for fake gunshots, explosions and assorted chaos as filming took place. The emergency services in the city braced themselves for a high number of emergency calls from those who weren’t expecting the unfamiliar noise. The local emergency management spokesman told residents: ‘If you hear shots fired or a disturbance or gunfire… call 911 and report it and we’ll figure it out.’

  Other disruption on the streets of Pittsburgh came about following the closure of some streets for filming, the use of fake snow and the felling of some trees in order to create the appearance of Gotham City. When filming finished in the city, Nolan and the crew took out an advertisement in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to thank the city for their patience and co-operation during filming. Nolan and the producers also then donated money to the Tree Pittsburgh group and paid for the trees they’d removed to be replaced.

  Tom Hardy spoke of the problems when filming at locations such as these. Clearly, the public would be able to see what was going on and were likely to want to take pictures. ‘I think there’s a certain inevitability if you’re going to shoot in the middle of the street,’ he told Access Hollywood. ‘It’s very hard to block off the entire street from people taking photographs… but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be anything like the film.’

  The other location that featured in the Pittsburgh shooting schedule was Heinz Field, the home of the Pittsburgh Steelers football team. Heinz Field was used to film a football match between Gotham City Rogues and the Rapid City Monuments (shots from this can be seen on the extended trailer for the film that has now been released). Local residents were recruited to be extras for the scenes and, in spite of it being summer, had to be kitted out as if it were a Gotham City winter. One of the extras who was present on the day said that, even when it began to pour with rain, Christopher Nolan was far from deterred and wouldn’t let the weather interfere with his work – he apparently ‘put on his raincoat (although he didn’t bother with the hood) and continued to work on getting the right camera angles and directing the crew,’ she told Patriot News. Another extra present on the day described Tom as ‘truly larger than life’. Photos from the various shoots in Pittsburgh did leak out, so fans were able to get a clear idea of what Bane would look like in the film.

  In October, two weeks of filming in New York got underway. The cast and crew braved Wall Street (which had been home to the Occupy Wall Street anti-capitalist protests) to recreate Gotham’s police department and also to shoot a fight between Batman and Bane. The fight scenes were filmed at City Hall and over 1,000 extras were used. Reportedly, Warner Bros picked up the tab for police and fire officers to be on the site. A spokesperson from the Mayor’s office said: ‘There are thousands of jobs attached to the production and we are thrilled that those jobs and this production ar
e in New York.’

  Tom spoke of the difficulty of filming his more aggressive scenes in the midst of so many extras. In one of his scenes, he needed to fight with a number of policemen in the crowd but was concerned about making sure he picked out the ones who were the trained fighters. Rehearsing the fight was no problem and Hardy had his moves blocked but when it came to doing it for real, matters got a little trickier. ‘That’s all right in a rehearsal room, but then you add 1,000 people that are all dressed the same as the seven you’re supposed to hit – because they’re all police officers – and I don’t know where my police officers are,’ he explained to Empire magazine.

  The filming, of course, attracted a great deal of attention and photos appeared of the Batwing on a crane over Wall Street. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Christian Bale (in his Bruce Wayne guise) were spotted and photos also appeared of the hyped epic fight between Batman and Bane. Amongst the combat photos, a lighter moment was revealed when a photo of Christian Bale and Tom Hardy sharing a macho hug turned up in the press.

  It was refreshing to see that the two actors – who seem to have similar approaches to preparing for their roles – had only positive things to say about each other. Speaking on the ill-fated Jonathan Ross show, Tom said of Bale: ‘He was a massive draw to work with.’ He went on to add that, when he’d first seen Bale on set, he thought that he would be no competition for him as man mountain Bane. However, when Bale appeared in his Batman gear, he revised his opinion, saying to Ross that Bale is ‘a really tough boy’.

  The compliments were reciprocated when Bale described Tom as a ‘phenomenal actor. I like working with him a great deal. He goes the whole hog. I know that Bane has been seen in movies before but in my eyes, Tom is essentially creating Bane for the first time, so there’s a great deal of freedom for him to be able to do so.’

  Filming together didn’t always run smoothly for the two actors, though. When both in their respective costumes, they realised that they were struggling to communicate when filming scenes together. As Batman, Bale is subsumed beneath his mask, which covers most of his head, including his ears, and Tom obviously had most of his face obscured by Bane’s mask. For Bale, trying to hear what we can only assume will be the very muffled voice of Tom must have been really tricky. Tom explained to Total Film magazine that while the parts of the costumes they had to wear on their faces were great at establishing their physical presence on screen: ‘The only downside is you can’t hear a word anyone is saying. Batman can’t hear me and he can’t see me speaking so we sort of stand there looking at each other… we’ve been doing hand signals. I put my thumbs up when I finish my lines or I wink. And he sort of wiggles his fingers out of shot…’

  One other small problem that Tom probably wasn’t prepared for was during one of his fight scenes with Christian Bale. Apparently Bale got a bit too heavily into the fight and left Tom with a pair of ripped trousers. The fight was, according to the Express, part of a ‘prison breakout storyline’.

  Before 2011 came to a close, more morsels of information about The Dark Knight Rises were revealed. Speaking to Empire magazine, Christopher Nolan confirmed that the third part of the trilogy would pick up eight years after the conclusion of The Dark Knight, which according to the director left our hero with ‘his reputation in tatters, on the run’. Wayne would therefore be considerably older in The Dark Knight Rises and would also apparently appear more in the daylight than he had in the previous two films. ‘The character himself has the reputation now, so he’s able to expose himself more and still intimidate people. And with the third film we’re just pushing that further.’

  The first teaser trailer for The Dark Knight Rises had been released in July 2011, but hadn’t given a great deal away. At only just over a minute long, it showed Commissioner Gordon in a hospital bed saying that Batman needed to return because evil was on the rise. It also gave us the first glimpse of Bane in his mask as well as a brief shot of what seemed to be Bane and Batman gearing up for a fight with each other. The second trailer, a full-length one, was unveiled in December of the same year and provided a better glimpse of Bane (and his rather muffled voice), our first taster of Anne Hathaway as Selena Kyle and, excitingly for those who like a film with boys’ toys, a glimpse of the Batwing in action and Bane’s Tumbler. The trailer was the most watched trailer on iTunes, with 12.5 million people viewing it in just 24 hours.

  The marketing campaign stepped up a gear when, just days after the release of the second trailer, a preview of the first six minutes of the film was shown at IMAX cinemas in the UK with screenings of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. It was fitting that it was shown on IMAX screens – Christopher Nolan had steadfastly refused to shoot The Dark Knight Rises in 3D, as is now the norm, but had opted to stick to shooting as many scenes as he could using the large format IMAX cameras. For The Dark Knight he had shot about 25 minutes-worth of footage as IMAX, which works so well for action-packed, cinematic sequences. Apparently, for The Dark Knight Rises, he’d managed to shoot about twice as much in the larger format. Although the results using IMAX cameras are spectacular, Nolan maintained that the cameras are very noisy to operate, so not suitable for use when filming dialogue scenes.

  As the sneak preview was only available via IMAX cinemas, of which there are relatively few in Britain, not that many people saw it. There was much written about it in the press, though, which helped to keep the film at the forefront of people’s minds. Unfortunately, the aspect of the preview that most occupied journalists’ column inches was the fact that Bane’s dialogue was difficult to understand thanks to his speech being muffled by his mask.

  The concern about Bane’s lines being unintelligible didn’t at first seem to bother either Nolan or Tom Hardy. Nolan has apparently refused to re-record or edit the dialogue but it has been suggested that a re-mastered version of the audio has been made available. When asked about the issue, Tom shrugged off any criticism saying: ‘I trust Christopher Nolan implicitly. I’m not worried at all about people understanding him [Bane] mumbling away.’

  As the remarkable trilogy came to an end, Christopher Nolan admitted that he would be sad to see the conclusion of his superhero franchise. Speaking to Hero Complex he confessed: ‘I tend not to be too emotional on the set, I find that doesn’t help me do my job. But you definitely get a little lump in your throat thinking that, OK, this is going to be the last time we’re going to be doing this. It’s been quite a journey.’ It certainly had: the legend had ended.

  At present, rebooting seems to be the done thing in Hollywood. The Batman trilogy is a fine example of a reboot that has been enormously successful and very cleverly produced. 2012’s other summer superhero offering The Amazing Spider-Man has attracted criticism for being so quick to reboot again following the Sam Raimi/Tobey Maguire Spider-Man films of the previous decade. There is one movie reworking on the horizon, however, that is causing quite a stir amongst film aficionados.

  In October 2009, it was confirmed that George Miller would be back at the directorial helm for a fourth, updated instalment of his Mad Max films. At that stage, not a great deal was known about the production, but that did little to stop the rumour mill going into overdrive. Several actors were touted as being in the running to take over Mel Gibson’s role as Max Rockatansky, including Sam Worthington, Jeremy Renner, of course, Tom Hardy. Being an Australian, Sam Worthington was the favourite choice down under, but it was suspected he might have a schedule clash with another production. Charlize Theron had already been confirmed as having won a part in the film and, as she had already worked with Jeremy Renner in North Country, he might also have had an advantage over other actors. The title of the new film had been revealed to be Mad Max: Fury Road.

  After a few weeks of speculation, it emerged that Tom was to be the new Max. Even those who were sceptical about Max not being played by an Australian actor seemed to be pacified by the news that the part had been taken by Tom – he’d shown how strong and accomplished an actor he was in
Bronson and film fans were keen to see more of what he could do.

  The first Mad Max film had been released in 1979 and starred a young Mel Gibson in the lead role. It was directed by George Miller (who in fact went on to direct the two sequels to Mad Max in the eighties). The film was set in a dystopian future Australia where law and order have broken down. Max is a policeman whose wife and child are murdered by a vicious motorcycle gang and the enraged Max tracks down the gang’s members, killing them all. At the time, Mel Gibson was an unknown and the films were responsible for launching his career. In 1981, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior came out and was followed in 1985 by Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. The series attained cult status and the films have been recognised as having a profound influence on post-apocalyptic films made subsequently.

  The fourth instalment had been a long time in the offing. Miller had been in possession of a script he was satisfied with for over a decade but filming had stalled in 2001 because of global security issues and economic turmoil. Whilst drumming his fingers waiting to start work on Mad Max 4, Miller veered off on an unexpected course and directed the animated musical feature about penguins, Happy Feet and its successor Happy Feet 2. All the while, though, the director was honing his next Max film and paving the way for when shooting did eventually begin. ‘All the time, I worked really hard to get the screenplay right and really prepared the film very well,’ he commented.