Batman is one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, so he's been adapted for film a number of times. Fans love to rank the Batman movies, and Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy (which is available to stream with a Max subscription) usually ranks quite high. Christian Bale's performance was universally acclaimed, although he shared the funny story behind what it was really like to fight Tom Hardy as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises.
New information is constantly coming out about the Dark Knight trilogy, which is regularly re-watched by fans. In an interview that's circulating around Instagram, Bale revealed the truth about that final battle against Bane. He said:
You know, the thing that would happen between me Tom, whose superb by the way what an actor. We were so far apart, and I couldn't hear what he was saying because there was so much noise. And he couldn't hear what I was saying, so much noise. And every time Chris Nolan the director was going 'Guys, you're not answering each other.' We can't hear anything.
Talk about a challenge. These comments make a great deal of sense, given the scale of The Dark Knight Rises' final battle. It's a huge scene with a ton of extras doing battle, so there was understandably a ton of noise around them. Add in those costumes like Batman's cowl, and hearing dialogue had to have been a struggle.
So what was the solution? In the same interview, Christian Bale went on to explain how he and Tom Hardy managed to do their jobs without really being able to communicate verbally. As he put it:
So Tom and I, I would say my line and I would go [gestures] with my finger and he'd know I'm done, your turn. And then he would do hit bit and then he'd go like that but a bit more discreet. Hopefully nobody notices in the feature film. But that was how we communicated.
Honestly, who doesn't love to see how the sausage gets made? Filmmaking is so often about solving problems in order to appropriately capture a scene. And while the final battle of The Dark Knight Rises is epic, actually filming it seems a bit less glamorous. Still, the efforts by Bale an Hardy helped make the acclaimed threequel what it is.
All eyes are on what Batman will be up to in upcoming DC movies. That includes both the sequel to The Batman, as well as the version of the character who will make it into James Gunn's developing DCU.
The next DC movie hitting theaters is Superman on July 11th, 2025. In the meantime, check the 2025 movie release dates.
