One of the aspects of Christopher Nolan's acclaimed Batman trilogy that made the films unique was how the director remained deliberately vague about what made its evil supervillains so evil in the first place. Heath Ledger's Joker, for instance, offers several variants on the "origin story" often presumed to be integral to any superhero and villain. And though "The Dark Knight Rises" packs a great deal of narrative and sub-lots into its 165 minute running time, Bane's backstory is not one of them. Other characters even ask Bane about why he wears his face-mask, utility belt, or massive deltoid muscles, something Tom Hardy's character usually responds to by simply killing them.

Turns out, "The Dark Knight Rises" did originally contain a deeper explanation of Bane's origin story than once thought. Speaking to GQ in a somewhat unrelated interview, the movie's costume designer Linda Hemming unwittingly opened up about an extended flashback sequence for Tom Hardy's character that apparently was edited out of the final cut.

"The other thing that you should have seen during that sequence is him being injured in his youth. So one of the fundamental things about his costume is that he has this scar from the back injury. Even if he hasn't got the bulletproof vest on, he still has to wear the waist belt and the braces. In that scene in the prison, where he's learning to fight the same way Batman learned to fight, he's wearing an early version of his waist belt. It's showing support, but it's not the finished one he eventually wears. He's also wearing an early version of his gas mask, all glued together."

Hemming went on to say that there is "a whole early section for Tom Hardy where he's fighting and being taunted by people. He's got chains on him, and he's standing on a wooden thing while people are attacking him. And in that scene, he's wearing a much more ragged, primitive version of the mask."

At the time of the interview, Hemming hadn't actually seen the version of the film that entered theaters last month, something she admitted after the GQ writer told her that the scene she was describing never appeared. "Well that's an awful shame, but I suppose you have to cut things," Hemming replied when hearing the news.

This revelation comes shortly after a deleted scene from "The Dark Knight Rises" surfaced from the upcoming "The Dark Knight Trilogy," a collection of screenplays and storyboards from the film series.

Christopher Nolan has not commented on the change yet, though critics such as Vulture's Kyle Buchanan suspect that fans of "The Dark Knight Rises" will most likely have to wait until the film arrives on DVD and Blu-ray to see all the deleted scenes for themselves. After realizing her admission, Hemming herself retreated as best she could: "I won't elaborate on it too much, because it isn't in the film, but there was another section that showed you why he had the mask and where it came from."

A release date for "The Dark Knight Rises" DVD has not yet been revealed.