Bale spends much of the film in the Batsuit, a tight-fitting rubber costume which comes with a mask and cowl, and said that he found it difficult to breathe in the suit while filming the franchise's third instalment.
© Warner Bros.
"When it gets cold the cowl is extremely tight, and it gets better the warmer I get it; it becomes more flexible," Bale told Empire
"But after a couple of takes I was trying to breathe properly in my nose. I was starting to see stars and I said, 'I have to take this off'.
"And thank God, on this one I can - on Batman Begins I couldn't - so I had to get inside because I couldn't let anybody see me without the cowl."
Bale's co-star Anne Hathaway revealed that she came to regard her Catwoman costume as "a psychological terrorist", because of the constant pressure she was under to fit into it.
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The Dark Knight Rises opens on July 20. Watch a trailer below:
