Tom Hardy admits his specialised diet ahead of The Dark Knight Rises left him with a "big fat neck" in the film.

The British actor plays villainous Bane in the hotly-anticipated Christopher Nolan film. Tom is famed for his impressive physique, but says putting on weight for the movie left him sporting a rather large neck.

“Yes, I always enjoy being the bad guy. You get to do more of what you want as opposed to being a good guy where you don’t really get to do what you want," he told UK TV show Daybreak.

“I pushed a lot of weight, I ate a lot and I didn’t do any cardio for about a year. So I ended up being really fat and now I am suffering the consequences. I have a big fat neck in it, yeah.”

Anne Hathaway stars as Selina Kyle/Catwoman in the film. There has been much buzz surrounding the star's iconic skin-tight catsuit, but Anne insists it wasn't made into a big deal on set.

“No one ever really talked to me about my body," she explained.

"It wasn’t about how… I mean I’m sure they had their ideas but they were always really sensitive to my feelings about it and they just asked me to get really strong so that way I could do all my own fighting.”