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Why Does 'Bane' Wear a Mask?

Fictional supervillain ‘Bane’ is a character from DC Comics and is Batman’s nemesis. He was played by Tom Hardy in the 2012 film ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, but why does he wear a mask?

Director of ‘The Dark Knight Rise’, Christopher Nolan, has explained that Bane’s audio-muffling mask is worn to reduce pain, and pumps anaesthetic through his body. Bane suffers extreme pain from a trauma suffered long ago and the mask acts as a pain depressant.

Read on to learn more about the backstory to Bane’s mask and his turbulent relationship with Batman.

Origins of Bane

Bane appears in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ as Batman’s enemy and is intent on destroying Gotham. The comic book origins of the mysterious Bane are established in ‘Knightfall’ and are both dark and brutal.

According to the comics, Bane grew up in prison, destined to serve his father’s prison sentence, and had to quickly learn to fend for himself around the other prisoners. After being forced by the prison warden to become the new test subject for a drug called Venom, Bane is imbued with incredible strength, but finds himself addicted to the drug and needs it in order to survive. 

With exceptional intelligence and ridiculous strength, Bane is the only one of Batman’s enemies to be credited with ‘breaking the bat’, but his dependency on the drug is his greatest weakness.  

Bane is listed as number 34 in IGN’s list of the Top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time, recognised because “his plan to break the Bat was methodical, and worst of all, patient”. While Venom is his fuel, it’s his intelligence that makes him such a formidable foe.

The Mask

Though in most depictions of ‘Bane’, the mask is inseparable from the character, this hasn’t always been the case. ‘In Batman: The Animated Series’, the character had a visible mouth, which aided the animation.

The production team behind ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ revealed some insights into the reasoning behind the mask that defines Tom Hardy’s character in the film. Christopher Nolan said

“Bane is someone ravaged by pain from a trauma suffered long ago, and the mask dispenses a type of anesthetic that keeps his pain just below the threshold so he can function”.

The film’s costume designer Lindy Hemming added, “He was injured early in his story. He’s suffering from pain and he needs gas to survive. He cannot survive the pain without the mask. The pipes from the mask go back along his jawline and feed into the thing at the back where there are two canisters of whatever it is…the anesthetic”.

Though Tom Hardy hated having to wear the mask, he joked that, “I had something to moan about, legitimately. So that’s nice, as an actor, to have something to legitimately moan about”.

On the terrifying appearance of his unusual headgear, Hardy said, “It’s got a scowling grimace on it, and obviously, it looks quite claustrophobic as well, and I think that something that close to a human being’s face emanates a certain discomfort for people who are looking at him or her.”

‘Bane’ Actors

The character of Bane has been played by multiple actors over the years, the first being Robert Swenson in the 1997 live-action film ‘Batman & Robin’.

Swenson was a successful professional wrestler and, naturally, his Bane was large and muscular. However, IGN criticised the representation saying, “his fighting style consisted of lumbering around and growling. Clearly, there was little for fans to enjoy with this interpretation of the character.”

The next actor to play ‘Bane’ on screen was Tom Hardy, who said of having to wear the distinctive facial apparel, “Like I care. It’s Chris Nolan! I would wear a paper bag over my head for that man.” His performance in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ won rave reviews, and the actor developed a distinctive and distorted voice for the role.

Watch the YouTube video below for a few key facts about Tom Hardy’s ‘Bane’!

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