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[Empire]: How is it working with Christian Bale?

[Tom]: I love Christian. He’s brilliant. He’s really good fun. And it’s like, he’s a really serious actor, he takes the work very seriously, but not himself very seriously. He’s a very funny, witty man, very smart. He’s a brilliant character actor, and not at all alpha male in the way that there’s not enough limelight for everybody to shine around him. So he’s not greedy. He has a tremendous humility as a performer. It’s a fucking breath of fresh air to work with somebody like that. And it’s very physical.

[Empire]: Because that is the advantage of Bane as villian…

[Tom]: This is the fight film.

[Empire]: You get to beat him up.

[Tom]: Well, it goes both ways. We beat each other up; we beat the shit out of each other. And he is a big lad, Christian. He’s not messing around. I just pull faces and wear tights for a living, do you know what I mean? I’m not a fighter [laughs], I give him all I’ve got and I’m like, Yeah! Then he gets up and goes, [does spot-on Bale impression] “That was really good” [claps hands]. And I’m like, “That was all I’ve got” [laughs]. He’s tougher than I am. In real life.

Tom Hardy talks Empire Online about working with Christian Bale.