Tom Hardy

by James Haydock

  According to the Observer, which featured an article about the costume design for the film, Tom’s character had ‘the most interesting wardrobe’ and it’s fair to say that, amongst the sombre suits and muted colours, Ricki’s clothes do stand out, in particular the sheepskin coat he is often seen swaggering about in. ‘He is out shooting people, so we wanted him to be this manly action person. The first person we turned to was Steve McQueen,’ Durran told the newspaper. Benedict Cumberbatch had his own take on Tom’s look in the film. Speaking to the Observer Magazine, he joked: ‘Tom did Starsky and Hutch via The Sweeney and I got the suits.’

  Of course, much was being made of the stellar cast that the film had attracted. Many of them award-winners and all of them highly acclaimed, it was refreshing to read reports of both the high regard in which they held each other and also the rapport which emerged amongst them on set. Though Tom’s star was undoubtedly already in the ascendant before Tinker came along, he was still appreciative of what an incredible opportunity it was to be part of something which had attracted such immense acting talent. ‘All the other guys that were in it, all the big boys, the John Hurts and the Gary Oldmans and the superheroes – to be able to work with them at all is incredible – it’s like being a part of a huge slab of Italian marble in a beautiful kitchen.’

  In particular, he was in awe of Gary Oldman, who he has often referred to as one of his acting heroes, even going as far as to admit that in the roles he had played thus far such as Stuart Shorter and Bronson, he had wanted to emulate what Gary had done before him. When they first met, Tom admits that he was star-struck by the older actor and remained so until he had grown accustomed to being in his presence. He also tells a heart-warming anecdote about the first scenes they had to shoot together. In the original scenes, Tom was sporting a beard which, it was later decided, was not appropriate for the character. During the initial shoot, he was so busy observing the way his idol worked that he became distracted from his own part and his performance didn’t play out as he had intended it to. To Tom’s relief, the scenes were re-shot minus the beard, and by the time of the re-shoot he’d had time to get used to the experience of working with the actor he had always held in such high regard.

  Tom has made reference to the fact that he would love to be the counterpart to Oldman for his generation of actors. He has also said that he would ‘chew his own arm off’ for the chance to work with Oldman. Tom’s lucky streak was set to continue and his wish was granted when the pair went on to work together on two more films back to back: The Wettest County in the World (renamed Lawless) and Batman – The Dark Knight Rises.

  Though Oldman is an acting legend in his own right, he is grounded and considerate and clearly thoroughly enjoyed working with the new generation of actors in the film. ‘It’s fun when you get to work with good young actors who are coming up. There’s some top talent in Tinker,’ was his generous comment to the Daily Mail. He went on to pay Tom a huge compliment by saying that he thought 2011 would be ‘the year of Tom Hardy’. What a fantastic accolade to receive from someone in whose footsteps you have always strived to follow.

  Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy also saw Tom reunited with his old mate Benedict Cumberbatch, with whom he had costarred in Stuart, A Life Backwards. Cumberbatch joked about the scene in which his character, Peter Guillam, has to trade blows with Tom’s character. ‘It was very enjoyable. He wanted me to hit him harder and I had to point out that I needed my hands for the rest of the day. Because he can take a bit of punishing, Tom. And it’s probably, let’s face it, the only time I’m going to really have a proper pop at him, in his current form. So it was good fun,’ he commented.

  Gary Oldman also revealed that during a lull in filming on the set one day thanks to bad weather, for want of something to do, the cast turned their hands to making the spy thriller into their very own musical. Speaking to the Daily Mail he said that all of the cast including Colin Firth, Kathy Burke and John Hurt joined in and ‘we started imagining a musical with titles like Where’s the Mole?’ Apparently Benedict Cumberbatch’s role in this spectacular piece of improvisation was as the impresario of the show. Film fans would have paid good money to see that behind-the-scenes gem!

  Oldman was not the only actor to speak about the fun the ensemble cast had while on set. Colin Firth remarked, with typically British self-deprecating wit, in an interview with Love Film.com: ‘If you get boys together, they regress … we spent most of the time between takes inhabiting the age of 10. We ended up sabotaging ourselves… it was a pitiful spectacle.’

  Over the summer prior to the film’s release, anticipation grew as teaser trailers were released and the official artwork for the movie posters did the rounds on the internet. Neither the trailers nor the posters left fans disappointed: the film seemed as accomplished and stylish as they had hoped it would be.

  The official release date for the film in the UK was 16 September, but its world premiere took place at the Venice Film Festival on Monday, 5 September. Early notices from the critics in attendance helped to build up the head of steam already growing about it. UK critics were clearly proud to have a film with home roots making such a strong showing at the event. The Telegraph awarded Tinker a five-star review and the paper’s David Gritten called the film ‘a British and European success story… it makes your heart pound, gets your pulses racing and sends your brain cells into overdrive.’ It was widely agreed that the fine ensemble cast were, as a unit, triumphant, but Tom was singled out for praise in particular by several critics. Empire’s Matt Mueller remarked upon the contrast Tom’s performance brought to the film when set beside the other characters: ‘Besides Oldman, it’s Hardy who makes the biggest impression, bringing a touch of humanity into this barrel of cold public-school fish.’ The Guardian’s Xan Brooks stated, ‘Tom Hardy raises the roof as Ricki Tarr,’ and IndieWIRE went so far as to say: ‘We’re virtually past the point of having to say that Tom Hardy is brilliant in a film, but brilliant he is and once more showing new strings to his bow.’

  The Observer’s Jason Solomons was so impressed with the film that he predicted it would be the frontrunner to win the Golden Lion, the top award of the festival. Sadly, the award was won by Faust, directed by Russian director Alexander Sokurov. The best actor award, ironically, was scooped by Michael Fassbender – the original name attached to the part of Ricki Tarr – for his performance in Shame.

  Although the film didn’t take home any prizes, the positive reports which emerged from Venice fuelled the anticipation of the film’s UK release. Finally, on 13 September, fans gathered on London’s South Bank to watch the cast arrive for the premiere at the BFI. Those who had patiently assembled were not disappointed as the stars of the film turned out in force, greeted their fans and gave their time happily to the press. The camaraderie between the actors was in evidence as they stood together for press photos to be taken. Tom spent a lot of time signing autographs and posing for photos with fans before being ushered away indoors.

  John Le Carré was also present at the premiere and it was gratifying to hear his feedback on the film. Like any author, he’d had reservations about another adaptation of his work but admitted that he thought the finished product was ‘wonderful’ and that he was ‘thrilled by it’. He referred to Gary Oldman as a Smiley who was ‘waiting patiently to explode’. He said that he’d been involved but in a modest way – as ‘a resource they could call upon’ if needed.

  ‘I approached the prospect of a feature film of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with the same misgivings that would have afflicted anyone else who had loved the television series of 32 years ago… George Smiley was Alec Guinness, Alec was George, period. How could another actor equal, let alone surpass, him?

  ‘My anxieties were misplaced. And if people write to me and say, “How could you let this happen to poor old Alec Guinness?”, I shall reply that, if “poor Alec” had witnessed Oldman’s performance, he would have been the first to give it a standing ovation.’ Le Carré w
ent on to say that Oldman ‘evokes the same solitude, inwardness, pain and intelligence that his predecessor brought to the part – even the same elegance.’

  He added that Gary Oldman’s Smiley was more of a ticking time bomb than Guinness’s version, somehow more dangerous.

  The positive reviews that had poured in after Venice continued in the British press once the film had gone on general release in the UK. Jonathan Romney in the Independent on Sunday praised the intelligence and complexity of the film. ‘You’ll feel your own synapses working at full tilt as you watch this intelligent, bracing, consummately achieved entertainment,’ he wrote. Chris Tookey of the Daily Mail was equally impressed, describing its ‘expertly handled tension, subtle menace and superior acting by everyone involved’. He, however, also expressed concerns about the place that a film as cerebral and labyrinthine as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy had in the modern age of effects-laden, action-packed movies. ‘In these days of diminished attention spans, I worry whether audiences are willing to steep themselves in the intricacies of this complex puzzle. The movie requires concentration.’

  He was not the first to raise such a point. The stars of the film had no hesitation in promoting the film as the antithesis of the kind of spy movies audiences had grown accustomed to watching. Gary Oldman had referred to it as ‘a quiet movie. You have to listen, you have to focus.’ In an interview with Sky Movies, Tom Hardy had highlighted the difference between this film and other films that took on a higher-octane approach to spying. ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the spy movie without the gadgets – it’s the footwork,’ he said. John Le Carré praised potential British viewers and stated that the cinema audience is ‘far more intelligent than it’s given credit for’.

  He was proved right. The film went straight to number one at the UK box office, becoming the third biggest three-day September opening on record. It wasn’t just initial excitement, either: clearly positive reviews and word of mouth worked as the film held on to the top position for a second weekend, taking £2.1 million in the second weekend. In a triumph for the British and European production, in that second weekend it also beat the new Steve Carrell comedy movie and, ironically, Tom’s next movie, Warrior.

  Further accolades for the film came when both Tom Hardy and Benedict Cumberbatch were nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category at the 2011 British Independent Film Awards, for their work in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Unfortunately, they both lost out to Michael Smiley for his performance in Kill List. Gary Oldman was nominated for Best Actor at both the BAFTA film awards and the Academy Awards in the USA but lost out on both gongs to Jean Dujardin for his part in The Artist.

  Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy had been a triumph in every way, from the acting to the direction to the box-office figures. It was a movie any actor would have been proud to be part of – and Tom certainly was. Having received praise both as part of the ensemble and for his individual performance in Tinker, what would the critics make of his next, altogether contrasting part? Would this, as Oldman had predicted, really turn out to be Tom’s year?

  Warrior tells the story of two estranged brothers who are reunited against the backdrop of a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) contest. It hit UK cinema screens just one week after Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Unusually, there had been a long lapse between the filming of Warrior, which had taken place in 2009, and its release in September 2011. The delay had been a result of the studio behind the film, Lionsgate, deciding to put back its release to avoid a head-to-head box-office battle with another prominent film in the same genre, The Fighter (starring Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale). In a strange chronology, Tom had actually finished shooting Warrior before filming began for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and even before he worked on Inception, which had been released in July 2010.

  In Warrior, Tom plays Tommy Conlon, a tormented ex-Marine who returns home to Pittsburgh after an absence of 14 years. He calls upon his father, Paddy (Nick Nolte), a recovering alcoholic, to train him for an MMA tournament with a winner-takes-all $5 million purse. Meanwhile, Tommy’s older brother Brendan (played by Australian actor Joel Edgerton), is a former fighter turned teacher who has landed himself in financial straits and who concurrently embarks on a return to the ring – or more accurately in this case, the cage. Predictably, the two brothers meet each other along their respective journeys towards the contest and the fractured family is forced to face up to its troubled past.

  Prior to Warrior, Joel Edgerton had been something of an unknown, particularly in Hollywood terms. The director and co-writer of Warrior, Gavin O’Connor, picked Hardy and Edgerton for their respective roles precisely because of their relative anonymity. ‘I didn’t want an audience to have any memories of these actors from other roles because I felt like that was going to get in the way of the performances,’ he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

  Ironically, in the lengthy period between wrapping the film and its release date, Tom’s profile in particular had soared. In the interim, he had made audiences and critics sit up and take notice with his dazzling performance in Bronson, he had won the BAFTA Rising Star Award, he had been part of the highly respected Brit triumph Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, plus it had been announced that he was to play both Bane in the new Batman film and Max Rockatansky in a prequel to the Mad Max film series. By the time of Warrior’s release, Tom had become hot property. Edgerton, meanwhile, had also had his share of plaudits as a result of his performance in the critically acclaimed Australian movie, Animal Kingdom and had been the subject of increased media attention when it was revealed that he had landed the role of Tom Buchanan alongside Leonardo Di Caprio in a forthcoming big screen adaptation of The Great Gatsby.

  O’Connor was thus far best known for directing two movies in particular: Pride and Glory and Miracle. Pride and Glory is a familial tale of generations of New York cops which pits family members against each other; his earlier film, Miracle, followed the fortunes of the 1980 US Olympic ice-hockey team. In Warrior, O’Connor would effectively draw from the two previous films and meld the themes of family dissonance and fierce sporting competition. For the director, it was the complexities of the relationship between the brothers and, in turn, their respective relationships with their father that would be at the heart of the film. ‘This story is much more a life drama than a movie about Mixed Martial Arts. It tells the story of a family that has to overcome great challenges that everyone can relate to in these tough times, and the backdrop happens to be this particular sport … you don’t have to be a fan of the sport to enjoy the story,’ he said to Big Lead Sports website just before the film opened.

  As cast and crew had intended, the film they had made was perceived as a story of dysfunction and separation within a family, which happened to be played out against a backdrop of sporting competition, as opposed to being solely a ‘fighting film’. O’Connor was in some ways proved right about the perception of the nature of his film by the results of the screen tests. They returned surprising results: the best scores it received were from women. ‘I remember after our first test screening, I went up to the studio and they jokingly said: “You made a chick flick.” We were all shocked,’ recalled the director.

  Having established that he was not looking for big lead names to fill the roles of the warring brothers, what was it that Gavin O’Connor needed to bring the story from the pages of his script and to breathe life into his leading characters?

  When Tom first read the script, the film was a very different beast from the final version. Initially, Tom felt he was physically too far away from the character of Tommy he was reading on the page, who was originally, according to the actor: ‘Hispanic. He had long hair and a ponytail and went swimming every morning with rocks in a rucksack.’ The script was re-drafted many times and, as part of that process, the character changed – as did the understanding of what was the central theme of the film. ‘It started to add up to me that Warrior wasn’t a kung fu martial arts kind of movie at all. This was actually a kind of family drama
with a backdrop of the world of mixed martial arts,’ Tom told Canada’s National Post.

  Tom was one of the last actors O’Connor met when looking for the right person to play Tommy. He needed to find an actor who could portray the complexity of the character, someone who understood the light and shade of the kind of human being who is outwardly aggressive but inwardly susceptible. ‘I needed someone who had a very tough exterior and yet had a deep vulnerability. The character does a lot of bad things and the audience had to understand that what he was doing was coming from a place of pain,’ reflected the director.

  Initially, Tom was unsure as to whether he could portray all the elements of Tommy and needed reassurance that he would be able to give a complete performance. To do this, he and O’Connor had to be in tune about who exactly Tommy was – something which came about in a slightly unconventional way. O’Connor has recounted how, rather than a usual style of audition, the actor in his characteristically intense fashion, turned up on his doorstep late one Sunday night to speak to him. ‘He was supposed to go to a hotel,’ O’Connor said in an interview with Wales on Sunday, ‘but instead stayed at my house for five days. He never left, so I got to know him very well. And the qualities he has as a human being are just right for the character.’

  Indeed, who would be better able to inhabit the skin of a character like Tommy than Tom Hardy? On an emotional level, he is nothing less than a perfect fit for the role. He has referred to the character of Tommy as having ‘no skin’, which is also how he has referred to his own younger self. In the same interview, he said of Tommy: ‘He’s running from everything. He can’t sit still …’, which again sounds rather like the Tom of a decade earlier. There were other personal experiences he could draw on too, enabling him to get inside the head of the man he needed to become on screen. He had first-hand experience of the immense strain that addiction can place on a family as well as the experience of recovery.