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The Richest Woman in TownWho Does Bane From 'The Dark Knight Rises' Sound Like?
From the very first preview, no one could understand him. He came, he claimed, as a "necessary evil" of "Gotham's reckoning." I guess having a non-silly, intelligible voice was not considered a necessary part of necessary evil.
When Bane premiered in the extended "Dark Knight Rises" preview that played before IMAX screenings of "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol," he just sounded like actor Tom Hardy with a mask over his face. Christopher Nolan insisted he wouldn't significantly change his borderline incomprehensible voice, but then he did, winding up with some much, much stranger (watch the line at 1:30 of this early trailer, and the line at 1:03 of this later one for proof). Now that "The Dark Knight Rises" is out, all anyone can talk about -- and all anyone can talk like -- is Bane and his slightly clearer, weirdly louder, and still-bizarre voice. Vulture said the original Bane voice sounded like "half-speed Buffalo Bill from 'Silence of the Lambs.'" In my review at ScreenCrush, I likened his pronouncements to a "pompous magician talking into the wrong end of a megaphone." But those are just two out of a myriad of interpretations of what is quickly becoming the cinematic Rorschach test of our age.
Who does Bane sound like? Who doesn't he sound like? I spent the afternoon collecting 50 (!!!) of the finest, funniest, and oddest descriptions of his idiosyncratic intonations. This is the sound of Gotham's reckoning (excuse me, "Gawthum's rehconiiiiiing," sorry Bane). And what an amusing sound it is.
Bane from "Dark Knight Rises" sounds like...
...Vincent Price talking through a window fan. (Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice)
...he's got an Egg McMuffin lodged in his trachea. (Phil Villarreal, OK! Magazine)
...somewhere between Yoda post-testosterone patch and Sean Connery on appletinis. (Michelle Orange, Movieline)
...an imitation of Sir Ian McKellen doing Patrick Stewart. (Tom Charity, CNN)
...Scooby-Doo. (Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle)
...a circus ringmaster trying to reach the cheap seats with a dollar-bin megaphone. (Rick Marshall, IFC)
...Bill Cosby speaking with an English accent through a Darth Vader filter. (samzepus, Slashdot)
...Darth Vader and Andy Kaufman's Foreign Man. (David Edelstein, NPR)
...Darth Vader with an Irish accent. (Dan Blomquist, Easy Reader News)
...Darth Vader shouting, while playing a bass accordion through a Harley Davidson exhaust pipe. (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian)
And, from Twitter, Bane also sounds like...
...he's ordering mass destruction on a drive-thru intercom. (@aparnapkin)
...what the Monopoly character looks like he sounds like. (@ABritto76)
...a kind old man who wants to sit in a rocking chair and tell me war stories. (@thejoehenderson)
...a posh, luvvie cat that's meowing from an adjoining room. (@petedonaldson)
...a drunk, eldery Patrick Stewart locked in a cupboard. (@bamblesquatch)
...an old English porn star. (@amayafiyah)
...Anna Faris' burp/growl voice. (@Emersonyeah)
...Darth Vader mixed with T-Pain. (@IngloriousApps)
...Homer Simpson pretending to be Mr. Burns. (@seanedevine)
...the alien from "Earth Versus the Flying Saucers." (@scottEweinberg)
..the talking trees from "Lord of the Rings." (@misterpatches)
...Dumbledore. (@kriziaahh)
...Voldemort. (@jtcs1981)
...Winnie the Pooh. (@Shamrock_NY)
...Count Chocula. (@greyplanet)
...Goldmember. (@chrisrobinson)
...Zoidberg from "Futurama." (@awilson149)
...Deckard Cain from "Diablo." (@14outof20)
...Meatwad from "Aqua Teen Hunger Force." (@Regina_Kara)
...Cap'n Crunch talking into an auto tuner. (@retrocrush)
...General Grievous on pot. (@rozaqmandias)
...David Attenborough on steroids. (@JustinCordery)
...Alan Partridge talking into a Pringles tube. (@red90)
...Daniel Plainview speaking through a walkie-talkie. (@ASimpleDan)
...Bon Scott from AC/DC. (@shlinnnnn)
...Jack Black from Tenacious D. (@CantFeelMy)
...Ian McKellan. (@fuzzydunlopCl)
...Ian McKellan imitating Sean Connery. (@koush)
...the computer from "WarGames" imitating Christopher Walken. (@thefilmcynic)
...Sean Connery. (@oh_keefe)
...robot Sean Connery. (@millerlamotte)
...Sean Connery with bronchitis. (@NathanHullfish)
...Sean Connery over a bad cell phone reception. (@jpthegiraffe)
...a jovial Sean Connery dying at the bottom of a well. (@gilbertcruz)
...a cross between Sean Connery and Krang from "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." (@LaurenFairley88)
...the love child of Sean Connery and Darth Vader. (@MikeRockavitch)
...the love child of Yoda and Cobra Commander. (@DCerminara)
...Darrell Hammond imitating Sean Connery. (@tconn)
...Darrell Hammond imitating Sean Connery through a vocoder. (@sternbergh)
...Darrell Hammond imitating Sean Connery while trapped in a well. (@KyleKallgren)
Have your own description of Bane's voice? Leave it in the comments section below. Special thanks to Evan Hughes, Michelle Orange, and Adam Sternbergh for suggesting this piece.
88 Comments
bubbele | April 12, 2013 10:17 AM
He sounds like Prince John in Disney's Robin Hood hahaha
c | March 20, 2013 8:11 AM
He sounds like Sean Connery talking into an old fashioned tin can phone while taking a dump inside of an Oktoberfest porta potty.
Ryan | March 8, 2013 1:57 PM
Anthony Hopkins
Joseph | March 5, 2013 12:28 AM
Bane sounds like goldmember with a megaphone! " when Gotham is in ashes, you have my permission to paint his yoo-hoo gold!"
Joseph | March 5, 2013 12:26 AM
Bane sounds like goldmember with a megaphone! " when Gotham is in ashes, you have my permission to paint his yoo-hoo gold!"
pleiadians | February 20, 2013 1:18 PM
mr bean on acid becomming suicidal
Ctwelve | December 26, 2012 4:18 AM
bane voice sounds like Darth vader doing Patrick Stewart
Rob Williams | December 25, 2012 8:00 PM
Hardy's voice sounds like a REALLY bad interpretation of the Cheetah from the Cheetos commercials.
Ali | December 19, 2012 2:34 AM
Bane's voice was tight I loved that was Nolan's interpretation that's all it was
AJ | December 12, 2012 2:56 AM
Fozzy Bear with throat cancer.
Seventy | December 6, 2012 4:09 PM
Bane sounds like Sean Connery sucked helium from a balloon and talked through a Darth Vader voice box.
Nova Fung | December 5, 2012 9:12 AM
He sounds like an idiot with those strange intonations.
Sie Bolt | December 1, 2012 5:41 PM
He sounds like Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer's father!!!
Kimberley Monari | November 3, 2012 7:48 AM
Hannibal Lector and Darth Vader's love child in the Hole in Alcatraz.
Jokerman | September 23, 2012 3:36 PM
Kobayashi from "Usual Suspects" speaking through a vacuum cleaner hose...
Hos | September 20, 2012 10:56 PM
Christopher Plumber, through actual plumbing.
Micu Lucian Ionel | September 5, 2012 6:10 PM
Sean Connery
Chris | September 5, 2012 5:20 AM
He sounds like Martin Jol - the Fulham FC manager.
Earl | September 2, 2012 4:16 PM
a cross between the voices of Sean Connery & Patrick Stewart and the intonations/deliveries of Hannibal Lector & Sean Connery
amanda | August 22, 2012 7:06 PM
Sounds like the wise turtle in the Neverending story
Chris Johnson | August 22, 2012 2:09 AM
Jeremy Irons with a cold or a speech impediment.
Leanne | August 21, 2012 9:18 AM
am i the only one that thought he sounded like John Hurt? i Just saw it last night and when i heard Banes voice i automatically thought of John Hurt :/
Paul | August 21, 2012 8:04 AM
Stephen Fry talking into a yoghurt pot is the best description I have heard.
jayjay | August 19, 2012 11:21 PM
Very cool voice. Whoever said a jovial Sean Connery is very close. I like the voice.
EvaKerplunk | August 19, 2012 9:45 PM
Sean Connery while he is trying to squeeze out that tenacious little poop out of his buttocks.
Mark | August 19, 2012 8:33 PM
He sounds like the bird that gets sat on by the Rhino in the Lion King. Right after the "I just can't wait to be king scene."
Milton | August 18, 2012 11:14 AM
Peter O'toole in Troy.
OzzyMandez | August 15, 2012 7:57 PM
He sounds like Goldmember with a pop-corn bucket covering his mouth.
James antolick | August 15, 2012 3:26 PM
Bans sounds like a Sean Connery tring to sing shakspear,
Bryan | August 13, 2012 9:11 AM
Sean Connery
Docdizzle | August 12, 2012 8:34 PM
Wilford Brinkley doing a taking over Gotham oatmeal commercial
Jac | August 11, 2012 9:55 PM
I was positive that Bane's voice was the gas doc from hellboy2
wes | August 11, 2012 1:41 PM
Darth vader mixed with Sean connery
Johnnyboy | August 9, 2012 6:28 PM
No, it's too English to be Sean Connery, its more like Patrick Stewart when he's voicing the Head of the CIA in American Dad
PPQ | August 9, 2012 3:55 AM
Dr. Henry Killinger
P Adams | August 9, 2012 12:26 AM
Watch Dark Knight Binges Parody
Better plot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVsn4RMJgwI&feature=youtube_gdata_player
minnie | August 8, 2012 5:26 PM
... Leonard Nimoy (Dr. William Bell) from Fringe!!
MarcBeers | August 8, 2012 12:47 AM
...a 70-something, British Shakespearean stage actor through a very small sewer pipe.
fuzzyeric | August 7, 2012 5:37 PM
Johann from Hellboy 2. (So, apparently he sounds like Seth McFarlane when he's not just doing a minor variation of New England Guy.)
Elie | August 6, 2012 5:14 PM
Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek the next Generation. I thought he was the actor the whole way through!
Joshua | August 5, 2012 1:47 AM
sounds like Charles Shaughnessy
Alana | August 4, 2012 11:25 PM
he sounds just like sean connery
LGB | August 3, 2012 2:55 AM
I thought he sounded exactly like Deckard Cain from Diablo II...
After you helped him defeat Diablo's hoards he decided to take on The Bat man....
Hunter | August 2, 2012 11:33 AM
I think he was trying to sound like gore Vidal speaking through a megaphone. It makes sense sort of his was a strong distinctive populist voice that the occupy movement quotes although apparently mr Vidal wasn't flattered by the impression...
Sean Wilson | August 2, 2012 10:09 AM
Matt Berry through a megaphone.
smithy | August 2, 2012 12:18 AM
He sounds exactly like Goldfinger in James Bond. I wouldnt be surprised if he modelled his voice on Goldfinger's!.
"No Mister Bond I expect you to die....!"
Jazzyfatnastee | August 1, 2012 11:35 PM
An old prospector imitating Box from "Logan's Run"
BROHERN | August 1, 2012 8:21 PM
He sounds like Plankton from Sponge Bob Square Pants.
Eazy | August 1, 2012 3:23 PM
Orson Welles' Robin Masters, and Optimus Prime.
Kobraman88 | July 31, 2012 11:18 PM
to me Bane at times sounded like a younger constipated Patrick Stewart
Sidewinder | July 30, 2012 7:33 PM
Mike Stoklasa' Plinkett character from RedLetterMedia ;)
http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-1-the-phantom-menace/
Mike U | July 30, 2012 11:44 AM
The love child of Darth Vader and the Maestro from Seinfeld.
spchtr | July 29, 2012 8:38 PM
Actually, he sounds an awful lot like Peter O'Toole...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K561m7Nq7kk
Dee | July 29, 2012 6:27 PM
He sounded like Tevya from "Fiddler on the Roof". I kept waiting for him to break into "If I Were a Rich Man" or "Tradition".
Joey | July 29, 2012 5:18 PM
he sounded Like a gay Sean Connery talking thru a Pringles tube...."I was born in the dark". No bane, u were born in the closet
uws | July 29, 2012 1:33 PM
Abraham Lincoln from Bill and Ted talking through a drainpipe.
The Reading Dark Knight | July 29, 2012 12:43 PM
"what lovely, lovely words", it's Marlon Brando's Dr Moreau in the Lord Humongous,warrior of the Wastelands body.
Bob | July 29, 2012 10:42 AM
He sounds like an upper class British transformer going through puberty.
They Call Me Tex | July 29, 2012 1:45 AM
He sounds a stoned version of that dentist in Finding Nemo.
Christina | July 28, 2012 11:26 PM
My son says he sounds like Winnie the Pooh-so he walk s around the house mimicking. Him.."Good Evening Mr Wayne...do you have my honey"?!?! I totally get it-the cadence of his voice is very similar.
Joseph | July 28, 2012 8:03 PM
Surprised nobody has mentioned Brian Blessed!
astute1 | July 28, 2012 7:52 PM
Bane's voice is a mean Sean Connery.
Dumog | July 28, 2012 3:25 PM
Any teenage boy trying to sound like Sean Connery, except with a stereotypical Indian accent.
Heather kennedy | July 27, 2012 8:41 PM
Its obviously the "Pepperidge Farms Remembers" guy.
Jerome Stueart | July 27, 2012 12:36 AM
I could swear his voice is actually JG Hertzler. The actor who played Martok on Deep Space Nine.
seanax | July 26, 2012 11:48 PM
I heard Max Von Sydow in his early English language films, very careful and very dramatic, but dropped an octave and filtered through a high school assembly PA system.
Janani N | July 26, 2012 8:51 PM
he sounds like bill hick's 'goat boy' alter ego. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Itdzus4tiQ&feature=endscreen
Jordan Bassett | July 26, 2012 4:11 PM
He sounds like this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJQkQdfruGE
Trevor Bartlett | July 26, 2012 1:40 PM
Stewie Griffin working a Taco Bell drive-through.
bizarrojerri | July 26, 2012 9:26 AM
...he sounds like John Cleese getting shit-faced inside an empty oil tanker...
mondoghosto | July 26, 2012 8:39 AM
He sounds like a gruff Leslie Phillips...surprised more people haven't thought this.
Like Leslie coming over all Darth Vader.
"I say, old chap, I am Gotham's reckoning. Hehh-llooooooo."
Ding-dongs as required.
J | July 26, 2012 3:33 AM
William Hague
Willie Ayee | July 26, 2012 3:31 AM
the villain from Die Hard: With A Vengence
Kate | July 26, 2012 12:19 AM
It's not mine, but I liked this one from Xan Brooks: "delivering his lines in a choked, muddy drawl that makes him sound like Marlon Brando, down a well-shaft, gargling from a jerry-can. Bane might be fomenting a mass uprising against Gotham's moneyed elite; he might be singing the show-tunes from La Cage aux Folles. It is sometimes hard to tell."
Steve Rotterdam | July 25, 2012 9:44 PM
Tor Johnson gargling with a harmonica.
Steve Rotterdam | July 25, 2012 9:43 PM
Auric Goldfinger inhaling Whippets.
Rob Jones | July 25, 2012 9:31 PM
And it doesn't get much better than that.
Rob Jones | July 25, 2012 9:30 PM
Pretty sure a walrus butler was Devin Faraci's
Matt | July 25, 2012 9:04 PM
FYI Tom Hardy has said he based Bane's voice on the late bare-knuckle boxer Bartley Gorman
Matthew Legarreta | July 25, 2012 8:36 PM
A walrus with a mustache and monocle and/or Mr. Monopoly.
AlmostFilmCritic | July 25, 2012 8:23 PM
Mix between Ian McKellan and Master Control Program from Tron.