During a conversation with Andy Serkis, Hardy discussed one of the internet’s most frequently asked questions about himself: How did Tom Hardy do the Bane voice? He explained:
“Bane quintessentially is Latinx… of origin, and I’m not. So I looked at the concept of Latin and found a character, a gentleman, a man called Bartley Gorman, who’s a Romani gypsy, the King of the Gypsies, in inverted commas, a bare-knuckle fighter…”
Coming from a long line of fighters, Gorman was also a distant relative of world heavyweight champ Tyson Fury. His career was far less glitzy; Gorman started fighting at the age of 10 and was duty-bound by Traveller tradition to take on any challengers, slugging it out with other hardmen in quarries, campsites, pubs, and even down a mineshaft. He remained undefeated until his retirement over 40 years later and claimed he never fought a regular bloke because he could kill them with one punch. Famous opponents included “The Guv’nor” Lenny McLean, the unlicensed brawler and underworld enforcer who made a memorable impression as Barry the Baptist in “Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels,” and he sparred with Muhammad Ali when the boxing legend visited Birmingham in 1983.
With this kind of background, it’s easy to see why Hardy was drawn to Gorman; he seems to gravitate toward tough nuts who have become part of modern-day British folklore through their exploits. Having already played the notorious prisoner Charles Bronson and the Kray Twins in “Legend,” Hardy channeled yet another larger-than-life rogue into his characterization of Bane.
