Tom Hardy has established himself as one of the most influential personalities in the Hollywood industry. With his talent for acting, he kept on challenging himself with complex roles that he worked hard to finally execute on-screen. Due to his intriguing presence, he left a long-lasting character impression on fans.
Tom Hardy Risked a Huge Criticism for His Bane Role
Tom Hardy’s character of Bane in The Dark Knight Rises is one of the iconic portrayals in Batman history. What makes him different is his character different is his husky voice which won fans’ hearts all across the world.
However, Hardy who is of English and Irish descent went all in to prepare for the menacing voice that shocked many.
In a Wired appearance, he talked about practicing to accent stating,
“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…”
His casting divided the fans as many pointed out that it showed the lack of representation in the acting industry as a character of Latinx origin was left in his care. But many thought otherwise. While he was way away from perfectly imitating Gorman’s voice, what he wanted to show eventually got accepted by film director, Christopher Nolan. He recalled,
“I showed Chris [Nolan] and said: ‘We can either go down a Darth Vader kind of route, straight, neutral-toned villain voice, or we could try this… we’ve got to consider the roots and origins of Bane, but we could get laughed out of the park, it might be something we regret. But it’s your choice ultimately.’ He goes, ‘No, I think we’ll go with it.’ And that was that. We played with it and made it a bit more florid, and now people laugh at it!”
He decided to go ahead with what he suggested irrespective of the character’s origin which still amuses many. It was quite a huge gamble since Liam Neeson had received quite a heat for his portrayal as Henri Ducard/Ra’s al Ghul.
Liam Neeson Was Criticized for Portraying Arabic Character, Ra’s al Ghul
In the 2005 film, Batman Begins, Liam Neeson played the villainous role of Henri Ducard/Ra’s al Ghul from the Batman canon. But, many found his casting to be quite wrong since the baddie is a Middle Easterner of Arabic origin. The franchise along with the actor caught heat for whitewashing the character instead of choosing the right fit for the role.
However, it didn’t bother his talent since the critics were highly impressed with his performance. But, it is safe to say that not everyone aligned with accepting him for the canon role with many highlighting the lack of diversity in the entertainment world at the time.
Source: Wired
