Latino Bane

I know I’m a little late, but I finally got around to watching the latest Batman movie. In the comics, Bane was from the (fictional) Caribbean Republic of Santa Prisca in the prison Peña Duro, spoke Spanish (among other languages), and was one of Batman’s fiercest villains. In the film, he spoke with an accent that was based on Bartley Gorman (an Irish boxer), and Caribbean accents as well.

He was from a prison in an Arab-esque country (I believe it was somewhere in northern Africa). In the film, they didn’t explicitly say Bane’s origin. he wasn’t born in the prison, and there are prisoners from many countries. So they easily could have kept him as a Latino character without changing the story around. Now, I mean nothing against Tom Hardy (who played Bane in this most recent Batman manifestation–I believe he’s a great actor and I loved him in The Warrior), but had Bane been kept a Latino character, a Latino actor could have portrayed him. It’s not like they picked Tom Hardy because he has Bane’s bodybuilder physique. He gained muscle for the film, but he only weighed a muscular 200 lbs during filming. Compare that to how the character looks in the comics.

And again, not to discredit Tom Hardy, but an accent from someone who was raised on a Caribbean island where Spanish and Portuguese are spoken would sound totally different than the one used onscreen. I’m no expert, but I’ve spoken to many people from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, and a few Brazilians as well. None of their accents resemble Hardy’s Bane.