The publicity surrounding The Dark Knight Rises is coming thick and fast now, with Chris Nolan talking at length about Bane, Batman and his final return to Gotham.



“I didn’t know him very well,” says Nolan to Hero Complex when asked why he chose Bane as the villain of the piece. “David Goyer got me a bunch of stuff on him and we looked into him. I only knew him by name, I wasn’t familiar with his back-story. He’s a very cool character.”



“With Bane, the physicality is the thing,” he continues. “With a good villain you need an archetype, you know, you need the extreme of some type of villainy. The Joker is obviously a particular archetype of diabolical, chaotic anarchy and has a devilish sense of humour.”



“Bane, to me, is something we haven’t dealt with in the films. We wanted to do something very different in this film. He’s a primarily physical villain, he’s a classic movie monster in a way — but with a terrific brain.”



Nolan has also expanded on the decision to set the film eight years after the events portrayed in The Dark Knight , reasoning that the gap in time is long enough to have had a profound effect on Bruce Wayne’s mental state.



“It’s a time period that is not so far ahead that we would have to do crazy makeup or anything,” he says, “but it gave [ the actors ] something to get their teeth into, particularly Christian in terms of [ portraying ] this guy who has been frozen in this moment in time with nowhere to go. He really has done an incredible job figuring out how to characterize that and express that.”



Meanwhile, Nolan has been preparing to say goodbye to a moment in time of his own, as his Batman saga finally draws to a close.



“I tend not to be too emotional on the set, I find that doesn’t help me do my job, but you definitely get a little lump in your throat thinking that, ‘OK, this is going to be the last time we’re going to be doing this.’”



“It’s been quite a journey. It was pretty emotional as we would finish these characters and say goodbye to Alfred for the last time and say goodbye to Commissioner Gordon and eventually, with Christian, fairly close to the end, saying goodbye to Batman … it was a big deal.”



To check out the interview in full, head over to Hero Complex . The Dark Knight Rises is released in the UK on 20 July 2012.