Tom Hardy as Bane, The Dark Knight Rises Regarding the villainous Bane's oftentimes unintelligible dialogue in The Dark Knight Rises prologue and trailer, director/co-screenwriter Christopher Nolan said that "I think when people see the film, things will come into focus. Bane is very complex and very interesting and when people see the finished film, people will be very entertained by him.” Bane is played by Tom Hardy, the London-born actor who was last year's winner of the British Academy of Film and Television's Orange Rising Star Award. Hardy will next be seen in This Is War, opposite Water for Elephants' Reese Witherspoon and Star Trek's Chris Pine. Next in line are The Dark Knight Rises and John Hillcoat's The Wettest Country, co-starring The Tree of Life and The Help's Jessica Chastain, Transformers: Dark of the Moon's Shia Labeouf, and Hardy's fellow The Dark Knight Rises actor Gary Oldman.