Contains possible spoilers. Click to read more.
Josh Pence (The Social Network) has joined the cast of The Dark Knight Rises. Pence will be playing a younger version of Ra's Al Ghul. Pence joins the returning cast of Gary Oldman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman. New to the fold are Tom Hardy as Bane, Joesph Gordon Levitt as Alberto Falcone, Anne Hathaway and Selina Kyle (Catwoman) and Marion Cotillard. Cotillard has been rumoured to be playing Talia Al Ghul, Ra's daughter and love interest of Batman's, so with Pence playing a younger Al Ghul it would lend credibility to the rumour.
The Ra's Al Ghul portion of the story will be set 30 years prior to Bruce Wayne meeting him and shows his beginning to the League of Shadows. This also sets up another possibility. In the comics Ra's Al Ghul can bring himself back from the dead using devices known as Lazarus pits. No i can't see Christopher Nolan using this device in his straight-style Batman world but we never really see Al Ghul die at the end of Batman Begins and he did allow Bruce Wayne to believe he was dead before so we might be seeing a return from Liam Neeson. Maybe.