Tom Hardy reveals ‘King of the Gypsies’ inspiration behind divisive Bane accent in The Dark Knight Rises

Actor joked that ‘now people love’ the accent

Tom Hardy has revealed the inspiration behind his famous Bane accent.

The English actor portrayed the villain Bane opposite Christian Bale’s Batman in the critically acclaimed 2012 film The Dark Knight Rises.

Almost a decade later, Hardy has opened up about what inspired the distinctive and unique accent he used for his character in the film.

The 44-year-old talked about the accent during an interview with Wired, in which he answered the most frequently asked questions about himself on the internet.

“That was actually a really cool choice that Chris [Nolan] made,” explained Hardy.

“Bane quintessentially is Latinx in origin and I’m not. So I looked at the concept of Latin and found a man called Bartley Gorman, who’s a Romani gypsy. The king of the gypsies, in inverted commas, and a bare-knuckle fighter and a boxer.”

Gorman, who died in 2002, was a Welsh traveller and a bare-knuckle boxer who was hugely successful between 1972 and 1992.

“And [Gorman] said [puts on the Bane voice], ‘When I get into a ring with a man, and we want to wipe you off the face of the Earth, and he wants to kill me,’ and I was like this is great.”

Hardy went on to explain that he told Nolan about Gorman, telling the director: “We can either go down a sort of arch Darth Vader route, straight just neutral tone villain voice, or we could try this. And this I’ve been thinking of just in case we’ve got to consider the roots and origins of Bane.”

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He added that he told Nolan he was worried “we could get laughed out of the park with it, it might be something that we regret, but it’s your choice ultimately”.

Hardy recalled that Nolan said: “No, I think we’ll go with it.”

“And that was that. And we played with it and made it a bit more florid – and now people love it,” joked the Venom actor, who is well-aware that the accent divided fans.

Hardy will next be seen in Marvel’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which is slated for release on 1 October.