Tom Hardy

by James Haydock

  Tom was fascinated with the nature of the film and the fact that it seemed to mix up traditional genres. ‘I really like to play against the fact that we’re doing a spy movie in a rom-com,’ he commented. Plus, starring opposite Reese Witherspoon was bound to be an attractive prospect for a young male actor. ‘It was awesome to work with Reese as she is clearly the queen of the genre – she was really the draw,’ he told the Sunday Mirror. In turn, Witherspoon was pleased to have Tom as part of the team as he brought his usual staunch work ethic along to the set with him: ‘Tom is a very intense, focused actor. His mind races with thoughts and ideas. He was writing his own lines and helping us construct narrative. He’s smart – always adding to the process,’ she commented generously.

  The final piece of the casting jigsaw was to find the right woman to play Witherspoon’s character’s best friend, Trish. Trish is smart, wisecracking and her circumstances are very different from Lauren’s. She is married with kids and so delights in living vicariously through Lauren’s love life. Lauren often turns to her for advice, which she willingly dishes out – and it’s often quite terrible counsel! Witherspoon was desperate for Chelsea Handler to fill the role of Trish. As well as being an actress, Handler is a comedienne and writer but best known for presenting her own talk show, Chelsea Lately. Witherspoon knew that Handler would bring just the right kind of caustic ballsiness the role required. Handler was a perfect fit but the two actresses were, by their own admission, polar opposites in their approach to work. Witherspoon is the consummate professional, always coming to work prepared, whereas Handler had a rather more off-the-cuff approach to things. Handler would often ad lib in her scenes and make up jokes, causing Witherspoon to have to fight back laughter when filming. Witherspoon has referred to Handler as ‘uncontrollable and a genius’ and the pair clearly had a lot of fun when on set together.

  Chris Pine reported that the wisecracking banter between the two women was often in evidence, but that because he and Tom were rarely involved in the same scenes as them, they would usually miss out on the jokes. The following day, though, the boys would get to see what had transpired on set when watching the scenes played back and were astonished and entertained by what had been going on. ‘It was inevitable that Tom and I would come to set, and Reese and [Chelsea] would have shot a scene the day before and everybody was talking about what they’d shot yesterday. We’d watch playback and from poltergeist [jokes] to urethra [jokes]. It was just incredible,’ he told USA Today.

  Hilarious though Handler’s improvising was, some of her jokes were deemed a bit too near to the knuckle for the censors. Fox was anxious to get a PG-13 rating for the film in the USA so that it would reach as wide a demographic as possible. In order to do this, some of her racier sexual jokes had to be removed. The film had originally been given an R rating but, deeming this too restrictive, the studio appealed to the board of censors to lower it. When the appeal was turned down, they made the cuts to ensure they succeeded in getting the film rated as a PG-13. The bawdy jokes stayed in for British cinema-goers, though!

  Fun on set was by no means just the preserve of the two women. All those involved seemed to have a great time during the course of shooting. Although Tom and Reese Witherspoon hadn’t worked together before, they broke the ice on their first day in a rather unconventional manner. The first scene they had to film involved Lauren shooting Tuck in the crotch with a paintball gun. Ouch. ‘I just thought she’s sexy. But paintball in the nuts hurts,’ joked Tom.

  The pair also had a lot of fun filming the scene in which Tuck takes Lauren on a date and arranges for them to swing on a circus trapeze. Apparently Tom dedicated a lot of time to perfecting his trapeze skills so that it looked effortless when doing it for the cameras. ‘He practised for at least a month ahead of time,’ revealed Witherspoon to Front Row Features. ‘He rehearsed a lot, and he’d wake up super early in the morning. He had a trapeze installed in his hotel room. He did a great job. We’re very proud of him.’

  Reese has also made no secret of the fact that turning up to work on This Means War was by no means a chore. She loved the fact that she was getting to work on an action movie for the first time and delighted in learning how to use weapons – she even begged McG to write in more situations where she could use them. Having two good-looking and charming leading men also had its upside for the actress. ‘I had such a great time making that movie. It was interesting to get to fire guns! It was a lot of fun making out with two very handsome guys like Chris and Tom, a girl couldn’t ask for more than that,’ she explained to GT magazine.

  Pine’s experience was equally positive and he said the film was ‘a blast to shoot’. He was also in awe of how Reese threw herself wholeheartedly into the action part of the movie, stating: ‘I have pictures of Reese suspended in mid-air on a studio backlot.’ As for the ‘bromance’ between Chris Pine and Tom Hardy, did it extend behind the scenes? Tom clearly has a lot of respect for his co-star, saying ‘he’s hot as hell and really lovely. He’s a very funny guy so the banter with him was fun.’

  According to Reese Witherspoon, the cast was kept in the dark as to the ending of the film. As the conclusion would be such a crucial part of the film, it was essential that no information about which agent Lauren would choose – if indeed she did choose one of them – leaked out in advance. In order to prevent this from happening, the studio opted to play it safe and shoot a variety of endings for the film. ‘We shot endings where I could end up with Tom, or I could end up with Chris, or I could end up alone. Or I could end up with Chelsea Handler,’ she joked to Total Film magazine.

  For a change This Means War didn’t require a huge physical transformation for Tom. Having really piled on the muscle for Warrior, he’d actively been trying to lose some of the bulk since the film had wrapped. Now, he needed to put a little bit more back on so that he looked like a strong, fit spy. His preparation, then, wasn’t too demanding and, according to the actor, involved eating quite a bit of cake and other sugary foods. Chris Pine decided that to play FDR, whom he saw as a ‘hedonist’, he would need to stop lifting weights so he too lost quite a bit of his muscle mass.

  The US release date for the film had been slated as 17 February 2012, but Twentieth Century Fox made the decision to pull it forward in the schedule and try to hang publicity on the peg of Valentine’s Day. The president of Fox Distribution, Bruce Snyder, issued a forthright statement about the change, declaring: ‘Starting Valentine’s Day, we’re making war, not love. We’re armed and ready with the perfect movie. This is a picture that has it all – humor, charm, wit and action – and it plays through the roof.’

  If using cinema-goers’ and critics’ reactions to the film as a yardstick, the studio’s apparent confidence in their movie could be construed as a bit misplaced. Many felt that the plot of This Means War was just a stretch too far and that it had failed to maximise the talent its cast had to offer. In particular, many singled out their disappointment that a powerhouse actor such as Tom had found his way into what they considered to be a below-par film. Newsday summed up matters quite neatly when it referred to This Means War as ‘less than the sum of its parts’ and went on to express a hope that Tom Hardy had a twin and it was he who had in fact played Tuck, as ‘the guy in this alleged comedy has drunk the Hollywood Kool-Aid’.

  In spite of the film not being a big hit, Tom had made his first foray into the world of the big-budget, star-studded, glossy Hollywood romantic comedy. Now that he had one foot firmly planted on American soil, the projects he was taking on were bigger and he was starting to become a name people would remember.

  Bigger – in every sense of the word – was most definitely the order of the day when it came to Tom’s next job. In fact you can’t really get much bigger than the third and final instalment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. The excitement, the budget, the hype, the cast were all huge – and, as it happened, so was Tom’s character!

  In his original form, Batman was a DC Comics supe
rhero. He has been brought to life in various guises, first in two 1940s films and then in the 1960s television series in which Adam West took the title role. The television series bore little resemblance to the dark nature of the original comic book stories and was bright, colourful and camp. In the 1980s, Batman was brought to the big screen over the course of several films. The first, Batman, came out in 1989 and was directed by Tim Burton, with Michael Keaton in the title role and Jack Nicholson as The Joker. The film was deemed a success, both critically and commercially. The 1989 film was followed in 1992 by Batman Returns which boasted villains in the form of Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman and Danny de Vito as The Penguin. In 1995, the shine of the new Batman films faded a little when Joel Schumacher took over as director and Michael Keaton was replaced by Val Kilmer in the lead role. The series limped to a close with the fourth and final film, Batman and Robin in 1997. Val Kilmer couldn’t commit because of scheduling conflicts and was replaced by George Clooney and Schumacher once again took the helm as director. The tone of the film was too light-hearted and silly, probably thanks to Schumacher’s decision to pay homage to the 1960s television series, and was far from beloved by critics or fans.

  Thank heavens for Christopher Nolan, who has proved himself a trustworthy custodian of the caped crusader. In 2003, Nolan and co-writer David S. Goyer began work on Batman Begins for Warner Brothers. They knew from the start that they wanted the film to have a dark, brooding atmosphere and to be more realistic than the previous attempts. Batman Begins went back to the start of the Batman story and showed how he made his initial journey from Bruce Wayne to adopting his alter ego. The film was a fine achievement and was helped by having a perfectly cast group of actors working on it. Christian Bale – another actor known for his transformations and for the intensity he can bring to his characters was cast as Bruce Wayne/Batman, with Michael Caine as loyal valet Alfred. Tower of strength Gary Oldman was weary, morally upstanding Commissioner Gordon and Cillian Murphy was superb as the villainous Scarecrow. Katie Holmes brought just the right blend of strength and vulnerability to Bruce’s love interest Rachel Dawes. Released in 2005, the film was applauded by reviewers and restored the faith of audiences in a superhero movie franchise.

  The winning formula was repeated in the second instalment in 2008, The Dark Knight. Bale, Caine and Oldman all reprised their roles and they were joined by Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent/Two-Face and Heath Ledger as The Joker. Tragically, Heath Ledger died of a sleeping pill overdose shortly after he’d finished shooting his scenes. His performance as The Joker was one of the many highlights of the film, which was lauded both by critics and fans. The Dark Knight was a runaway success and, as well as being the highest-grossing movie of 2008, is the eleventh-highest grossing film of all time. This paved the way nicely for the third part of the trilogy in 2012.

  Fans were desperate to hear any news about the final film of the series and their patience was finally rewarded at the end of April 2010 when Warner Brothers confirmed that the film was underway and would be released in July 2012. Granted, there would be two agonising years to get through, but if Nolan’s previous form was anything to go by, it would be worth the wait. In October 2010 came the announcement that the title of the film would be Batman – The Dark Knight Rises.

  Gradually, over the course of the next few months, pieces of information about the film were fed to the press. It was confirmed that Christian Bale, Gary Oldman and Michael Caine would be returning for the conclusion, but one of the biggest questions on fans’ lips was which villains were going to be making an appearance. Nolan is famed for keeping his powder dry and, at this early stage, gave away very little of his plans. One thing he did confess to, though, was that the villain in his film would categorically not be The Riddler. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times Hero Complex, he did say: ‘We’ll use many of the same characters as we have all along, and we’ll be introducing some new ones.’ Not many clues there!

  In January 2011, more news was forthcoming and it was announced that one of the villains of the piece was to be a character called Bane – and he would be played by none other than Tom Hardy. Anne Hathaway was confirmed as Selina Kyle/Catwoman and Joseph Gordon Levitt and Marion Cotillard were both definitely to be in the film, but who exactly they would be playing remained the subject of debate.Nolan said at the time: ‘We’re very much excited about really finishing a trilogy and giving a conclusion to our story. And that’s what we’re doing.’

  Tom, needless to say, was delighted to have secured such a major role and wasn’t afraid of showing his excitement when asked about it. ‘Batman is such an amazing franchise that I honestly feel overwhelmingly privileged to be part of it. It’s such an amazing cast to work alongside, they are all so talented. I loved being able to play a baddie and, coming from East Sheen in South-West London, that doesn’t come easily to me. I actually had to work on not being very nice,’ he explained to the Mirror. He was understandably anxious, though, because he knew that comic-book fans had strong opinions on Bane and didn’t want to be the one to let them down. ‘So many people love him, and when you step into that role – you are going to fail. And be judged,’ he told CineMovie.

  The icing on the cake for Tom was to be working with Christopher Nolan again. He’d been lucky enough to work with the director on Inception and has the greatest respect for him. Tom often makes reference to the esteem in which he holds the director when he gives interviews and has variously said that he would read anything Nolan asked him to, including a shopping list or a telephone directory! ‘When Christopher Nolan throws a ball, I go fetch. I feel incredibly lucky to be working with a man of such imagination and technical ability. Long may it continue. He’s on a roll,’ he said in an interview with Huffington Post.

  Tom also feels indebted to Nolan as the director has given him two very big opportunities to showcase his talent in front of a much bigger audience: first in Inception and now in Dark Knight Rises. ‘I owe an awful lot to Christopher Nolan, because he put me on a massive platform and trusted me twice. I’m very grateful for it,’ he told the Daily Telegraph.

  Nolan had wanted Tom to play Bane from the start, but feared that his filming commitments on Mad Max – Fury Road would clash with filming for The Dark Knight Rises. When he heard that Mad Max had been delayed, he made the call to Tom who didn’t need to be asked twice.

  It’s noticeable that, besides using actors who had appeared in the previous Batman films, for the new characters he ended up casting quite a proportion of actors with whom he had worked on previous projects. Tom, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard had all been in Nolan’s Inception. As well as being familiar with these actors’ work and knowing what he could achieve with them, perhaps the director’s penchant for remaining tight-lipped on his projects means that he likes to keep a close and trusted circle of familiar faces around him. The strategy seems to work and they all remain loyal to the cause – even if they themselves are often kept in the dark about what is happening in the film. ‘Chris Nolan doesn’t tell you anything,’ said Tom. ‘So I don’t know what I’m doing or who I’m playing until the morning that I’m working.’

  When it came to The Dark Knight Rises, Nolan was refusing even to let the actors know how the film would end, to minimise the risk of any details slipping out into the public domain. He apparently sent scripts out to some of them with pages missing. Gary Oldman received his script with the final few pages missing and had to go and see Nolan in person to find out what would take place in the final scenes. ‘Christopher doesn’t want anyone to ruin it and I completely understand that. The newer people on the film go to his office to read the script.’ According to Oldman he has the details of the ending ‘locked away in his head’.

  When the press attempt to get any information out of cast members about the content of the film, they are met with a wall of silence. Tom and Joseph Gordon-Levitt have both invoked the ‘just trust Christopher Nolan’ mantra when confronted by media speculation. The only small s
lip-up came when 12-year-old Joey King, a young actress in the film, revealed that her character was to be the young Talia al Ghul. She then, however, went on to say, ‘I can’t give too much away because I promised Mr Nolan I wouldn’t say anything. There are too many secrets about the character and the movie.’

  The fact that King revealed who she would be playing was deemed a spoiler as it hadn’t been confirmed that the character Talia al Ghul, daughter of villainous Ras al Ghul (played by Liam Neeson in Batman Begins) would be appearing in the film. It had long been rumoured that Marion Cotillard might be playing the older version of the character and the statement from King confirmed that the character would be making an appearance. And if she was to play ‘the young’, who would be playing the older incarnation?

  So who was this baddie that Tom would be inhabiting? Bane was indeed a villain taken from the Batman comic books. He was created in 1993 by writers Chuck Dixon and Doug Moench, along with artist Graham Nolan (no relation to Christopher). Bane’s sole purpose was to destroy Batman and he is legendary for being ‘the man who broke the bat’. The character was born and raised in a high-security prison.Thanks to his background, he turned into a vicious but clever assassin who, thanks to having had experiments carried out on him using a derivative of the drug Venom, has superhuman strength. He is the most powerful and cerebral enemy Batman has ever come up against. ‘Yes, he’s even smarter than Bruce Wayne, with six languages at his disposal and a photographic memory. A superb detective, he’s able to deduce Batman’s secret identity in just one year. Even scarier? Unlike The Joker and Two-Face, Bane is completely sane,’ wrote Total Film in October 2011.

  Bane had appeared in Joel Schumacher’s Batman and Robin, but justice wasn’t done to the character and he was used as a camp sideshow to Uma Thurman’s Poison Ivy. Thankfully, the Bane of Chris Nolan and Tom Hardy’s imagination looks set to be something larger than life and utterly terrifying. Speaking to Empire magazine in January 2012, Tom gave his appraisal, as far as he was permitted at that stage, of Bane. ‘He’s brutal. And, you know, he’s a big dude. He’s a big dude who’s incredibly clinical… it’s not about fighting. It’s just about carnage with Bane. He’s a smashing machine.’ And while he was prepared to talk about how Bane fights, lips were firmly sealed on any other aspect of the villain.