Tom Hardy Compares His Dark Knight Rises Role to a Store at the Airport

Over the weekend at Comic-Con, Tom Hardy described his villainous role as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises thusly: "You deal with something Dark Knight -- or Mad Max, or Superman or Spider-Man, whatever -- it's like going to work in an airport and going, 'Hi I'm over here!' and then everybody goes 'Oh here's that, that's the villain of the piece.' Then it's a thousand people going to Duty-Free. Like, [shouting] 'I AM THE VILLAIN!' and make a lot of noise." But wait, there's more!

"There's a formula here, you can't muck around with it," Hardy continued at the press day for Lionsgate's Warrior, as reported by HitFix. "There's a lot of rules, you're restrained in many ways as an artist. But then you're also grateful because of the huge exposure and the paycheck."

"Or the not-paycheck 'cause they're making you a stahhh. Whatever it is, you're paying an entrance to getting higher exposure. These movies are huge vehicles to make a lot of money... and make a large audience happy. So now you're at the very top level of trying to bring character work in a boutique way to something that is, y'know, Starbucks."

So, to recap: Being the villain in The Dark Knight Rises is like being the $10 and Under boutique or the Cinnabon at the airport, where everyone would rather shop at the Duty Free store, or working as a barista at Starbucks to keep your punk band afloat. Makes total sense. Let's start a trend: Name your airport spirit animal-retailer below!

· Tom Hardy compares work on 'Dark Knight Rises,' 'Mad Max' to Starbucks [HitFix]