British actor Tom Hardy has come an awful long way and gained an awful lot of muscle mass since playing the skinny Shinzon, the equally bald and thoroughly villainous clone of Captain Picard in 2002's Star Trek: Nemesis.  Since earning no end of praise as the title character Nicolas Winding Refn's Bronson, Hardy has lined up an impressive assemblage of noteworthy upcoming roles, including taking over for Mel Gibson as the eponymous postapocalyptic badass in George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road.  Right now, though, he's in Pittsburgh filming The Dark Knight Rises with his Inception director Christopher Nolan.  The forthright actor recently talked about playing the musclebound baddie Bane and may very well have spilled some spoilerific beans about the story.

Tom Hardy (Inception) will join Gary Oldman, Ralph Fiennes, Ciaran Hinds, Jared Harris and Colin Firth in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Tomas Alfredson's adaptation of John Le Carre's 1974 novel.

Ralph Fiennes, Colin Firth, Gary Oldman and Michael Fassbender have all signed on to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, an espionage thriller from Working Title films and Studio Canal. Talk about a prestigious cast - that's half a Harry Potter movie right there! Swedish director Tomas Alfredson (Let The Right One In) will be helming the picture, which is based on a 1974 novel by John Le Carre. Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon) wrote the adaptation.

Here's the synopsis for the book, which also spawned a 70s UK series starring Alec Guinness: