Ever since the news broke that Tom Hardy had been cast in The Dark Knight Rises people have wondered what role he would play. Fans across the internet have come up with a lot of ideas, from a Gotham cop, to the main villain. The following information is a rumor, and should be treated as such.

I’ve heard that Tom Hardy is in fact going to play the villain. My source strongly believes that Hardy is going to be playing Hugo Strange. This is the first bit of information from this person that I’m publishing, however they have been accurate in the past. For example, this person told me weeks before the recent Christoper Nolan interview that The Riddler would not be appearing in the film. They also mentioned that Rachel Weisz and Anne Hathaway were in the running for the lead female role a couple of weeks before Deadline posted their list. Given their track record so far, I wanted to post this Hardy news that I received via email. Again, this should just be taken as rumor. I’m posting this for the sake of discussion since we’ve hit a dry spell with The Dark Knight Rises news. What do you guys think? Would you like to see Hugo Strange as the villain?

Update 12/17/10: A “very solid source” tells BOF that Tom Hardy is not playing Hugo Strange. Meanwhile, AICN claims to have seen “proof” that Hardy is Strange. We should know who he’s definitely playing some time early next year.