TDKR: Awesome New Images - Nolan, Bale And Hardy Sound Off!

Empire Online has shared some awesome images from THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. Be sure to pick up the mag because it's full of Dark Knight treats, including Christopher Nolan, Christian Bale and Tom Hardy sounding off on the film and their characters and picking up 8 years later with this story.

Nolan talks about the film and completing Bruce Wayne's story with a challenge;

"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."

Bale talks about Bane;

 "I wasn't familiar with Bane. Although I vaguely remembered just a crazy "roid-looking" guy with a mask. You know what I mean? I remember him less actually on screen, and more people telling me that, and wincing just like you did. I just trust and have faith in Chris I know he wasn't gonna mess around with making poor decision on the bloody villain was! it does harken back to that notion that this guy is originated from great pain and he has to address that--but at what point does it become indulgence? The question is how long do you allow pain to dominate your life? He has to try and answer that and move on."

Hardy jumps in and shares some info on his menacing character Bane;

"He's brutal. 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."

Costume designer Lindy Hemming chimes in and talks about Bane's past and his mask;

 "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 cannisters."

The Dark Knight Rises stars Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth, Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon, Tom Hardy as Bane, Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as John Blake and Marion Cotillard as Miranda Tate and is scheduled to hit theaters on July 20th 2012.


Source: Empire