Tom Hardy: A Real-Life Forger

Getting into it —

An actor’s biggest skillset is their ability to melt into the role they are playing at a given moment. A film might have an ingenious script or beautiful cinematography, but if the actors at the core of the story are not convincing in their roles, audiences are likely to leave the theatre unsatisfied. There is perhaps no currently-active actor with a better handle on the skill of disappearing into their role than Tom Hardy. Despite now garnering huge commercial success and being easily recognizable, Hardy still manages to become one with the character he’s playing, such that as an audience member, one does not look at him on screen and see him as an actor playing a role, but rather as the character themself. While Hardy has found great success in recent years with series such as Peaky Blinders, franchise films like Venom, and has built a repertoire with director Christopher Nolan (appearing in many of his films, from Inception to Dunkirk to The Dark Knight Rises), he also has a strong history of acting in films set in and around London, his hometown. Hardy’s presence in London-based films spans across the better part of a decade, and his performances are both greatly varied and distinctly in touch with the history and the text associated with the roles he assumes.

(Hardy as Matthew Payne, *Sweeney Todd*, 2006, David Moore)

1. Sweeney Todd, 2006

Only five years after the release of his first feature film (Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down), Tom Hardy appeared in the cast of the BBC’s made-for-television adaptation of Sweeney Todd. The film itself suffers due to its low production value (the fake blood is simply unconvincing), straight-cut script, and lack of creative vision, but despite this, the performances at the centre of it — Hardy’s in particular — make it watchable. Playing Constable Matthew Payne, Hardy brings a certain lightness to an otherwise heavy film and subject matter. His character is introduced rather suddenly — as a gunshot victim in need of Todd’s surgeon skills — and for the little time he is subsequently on screen, a fair amount of it is spent on, for lack of a better term, comic relief. From joking about his last name (Payne) when faced with the agony of the removal of the bullet, to saying that the chopped-up dead body of the jailer is “not pretty,” to touching a hanging taxidermied reptile in Todd’s home, his character is in clear contrast to the others in the film, Todd in particular. While this contrast creates an interesting texture in the film that otherwise would not exist, this role is clearly early in Hardy’s career, as evidenced by his performance if not his appearance. While still convincing in the way that he soon masters in his later films, Hardy’s inexperience comes through — he’s a bit awkward, at times pushing his performance just over the line of over-the-top (his manner of dying, in particular, shows this). Additionally, although Payne is set up as the moral opposite to Todd, the character has just a few minutes of screen time put together, perhaps reflecting both the story’s focus on Todd’s psyche and the production’s focus on a more prominent actor.

Hardy might have limited screen time, and his inexperience might be more evident in this film than his ones to come, but he still owns the role he plays; he uses what can be perceived as his own inexperience to suggest that his character is new to his job, and ultimately, he still manages to play as one of the only genuinely sympathetic characters in the film, so much so that Todd himself wails after being forced to kill him. While the character of Matthew Payne is certainly not Hardy’s finest work, it is still convincing and there is clear evidence of effort and care, a work ethic that only grows as the actor continues on in his career.

(Hardy as Bill Sikes and Sophie Okonedo as Nancy, *Oliver Twist*, 2007, Coky Giedroyc)

2. Oliver Twist, 2007

Considered one of the most significant films of its decade and perhaps British cinema on the whole, David Lean’s 1948 Oliver Twist set a high standard for future adaptations of the Dickens novel. However, despite the weighty legacy of the Lean film and its talented pool of actors, Tom Hardy manages to bring a new angle to the character of Bill Sikes in the 2007 BBC adaptation of Oliver Twist. With David Lean and Stanley Haynes’ script, Robert Newton’s portrayal of Sikes (“Sykes,” in the Lean film) is undeniably vicious. He’s a character with few redeeming qualities, and even Nancy does not seem to always like him. In contrast to this, the version of Sikes that Hardy portrays is much more sympathetic. The 2007 film is much, for lack of a better term, campier than the 1948 film — the characters tend to speak their thoughts out loud, the costumes are theatrical, and Fagin’s accent has unclear origins. However, despite the production on the whole tending to lean into melodrama, Hardy’s Sikes appears at ease on screen. His introductory scene is genuinely intimidating — he is first only heard, then only his back is shown as he threatens Fagin, and when he finally speaks on screen to intimidate Oliver, he barely blinks throughout their interaction. While Hardy successfully portrays the anger and intimidation that is also present in Newton’s version of the character, he also brings a level of heart to the Sikes, effectively differentiating his performance. The film chooses to show Sikes as being haunted by visions of Nancy after he kills her, and while Hardy could have taken this to mean that Sikes is unable to escape what he’s done on a societal level, he plays the character as manic and genuinely distraught (he almost desperately pleads with Oliver when he’s telling him to say that Nancy’s death isn’t his fault).

Perhaps the most significant difference in the characters stems from their endings. Newton’s Sikes gets shot and then accidentally hangs himself, whereas Hardy’s Sikes intentionally hangs himself. In the original novels, Sikes hangs himself whilst trying to escape, but it is unclear whether this is intentional on his part. However, given that Hardy plays Sikes as genuinely regretful about his own actions, bringing a level of humanity to a character who otherwise does not have much, Hardy effectively gives his character more power than he otherwise would have, differentiating his performance from the many other portrayals of the character.

(Hardy as Ricki Tarr, *Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy*, 2011, Tomas Alfredson)

3. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, 2011

Following his portrayal of Bill Sikes, Hardy appears to make a habit out of being introduced with his back to the audience, as seen in his role as Ricki Tarr in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The film as a whole has an enormous cast of characters, all of whom play a part in the story in their own way — not unlike the chess game that Smiley (Gary Oldman) sets up. Amidst this large cast and convoluted plot, it would be easy to get lost in the mix with a forgettable performance. Hardy avoids this skillfully, by honing in on his own character. In an interview with Digital Spy, Hardy explains his strategy, saying that he found “a linear trajectory,” and that “the character of Ricky Tarr has a straight twenty pages (...) so it was easy to follow (...) so it’s like, ‘oh, okay, that’s the character fleshed out,’ everything else I didn’t have to concern myself with.” In the same interview, Hardy goes on to clarify that he does not go as far as to simply read what is on the page and perform by the book, but rather that (and especially with a role such as Ricki Tarr), he found it helpful to focus solely on his own character’s story. The philosophy on acting clearly comes through in the film, as Tarr himself exists in contrast to everyone around him. In everything from the way he speaks to how he looks to his hair color to the way he carries himself, Tarr is the odd character out. He also is one of the only characters to get a linear storyline in the middle of the film, as opposed to bits and pieces throughout as the other characters’ stories are revealed.

By focusing on Tarr as an individual rather than a part of the whole, Hardy is able to depict his character in a way that the character might view himself. In the film, Tarr goes to Budapest on a mission, but soon breaks away from it on instinct — he follows his own intuition rather than protocol, mirroring Hardy’s approach to the role. Hardy has played characters that contrast the others in the ensemble prior to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, but where that contrast exists due to tonal differences or inexperience as in Sweeney Todd, in this film, it is clearly due to intentional acting choices made on his part, showing visible growth since his earlier films.

(Hardy as Ivan Locke, *Locke*, 2013, Steven Knight)

4. Locke, 2013

Rarely in either theatre or film is an actor given an opportunity to be the sole person on stage or screen (other notable forays into this idea include Buried and Castaway), yet Tom Hardy dives head first into Locke, a film with exactly this premise. The film balances three major threads: Ivan Locke’s relationship to his now-deceased father, concrete-related crises at work, and the fact that nine months prior to the film, he cheated on his wife during a work retreat and now the woman he slept with is about to give birth. Despite how varied these threads are and how heavy the last one is in particular, Hardy manages to smoothly emotionally transition between them, even with no other person physically present for the film to cut away to. The tension of the film and his character grow as the story progresses, and this is felt in his performance; Ivan maintains a carefully-controlled exterior because he knows he needs to be the calm one in every call he makes that evening, even going so far as to tell his wife he “want[s] to talk about next steps” after he’s broken the news of his infidelity. Locke showcases Hardy’s ability to control different parts of his performance (he frequently is speaking distressing words in an incredibly calm voice while actually emoting on his face), but it also shows his ability to persevere through a difficult situation.

In an interview, Hardy disclosed that he actually had a cold throughout the entire filming of the movie, but instead of letting it hinder his performance, he works it into the character such that it becomes nearly impossible to imagine him in this situation in any other way. Additionally, Hardy’s ability to understand a character comes through in full force with Ivan — the role was indeed written for him, as Steven Knight explained in an interview, but even beyond both Knight and Hardy’s deep understanding of the character given their involvement in his development, Hardy’s approach to portraying morally-grey people comes through. To get into the mind of the character, Hardy explains that he “will play pretend and fabricate and embellish, [he] will try to find, with anybody, something to neither protect them or neither punish them, so [he] tr[ies] to defense-lawyer them as best as possible, so [he has] to really like that person even if they’re doing something particularly heinous. [He has] to understand that. And enjoy it.” Hardy’s commitment to understanding a character he might not personally relate to or agree with is evident in the way the actor is able to disappear into the roles he plays; Ivan Locke is a character meant to divide audiences and cause them to think, and the success of this mission depends on Hardy’s ability to convince the viewer of Locke’s humanity.

(Hardy as Ronnie [left] and Reggie [right] Kray, *Legend*, 2015, Brian Helgeland)

5. Legend, 2015

Continuing in the trend of playing morally ambiguous (and in this case more reprehensible than ambiguous) characters, Hardy plays both Reggie and Ronnie Kray in the 2015 film Legend. An actor playing against themself is something that has been done before in everything from The Parent Trap (Lindsey Lohan plays both Hallie and Annie) to The Social Network (Armie Hammer plays both the Winklevoss twins), but Legend portrays Ronnie and Reggie as such contrasts to each other that it’s a testament to Hardy’s acting abilities. They’re physically the same but the characters themselves are so different that they feel like individuals in their own right, as opposed to films such as The Parent Trap or The Social Network where the twins are very similar in personality. Ronnie and Reggie Kray, in reality, were different people, as all twins are of course, but Hardy displays these characteristic differences very convincingly.

Emily Browning, Hardy’s co-star in the film and the love interest of Reggie, stated that “it’s a testament to Tom’s performance, I genuinely felt like I was working with two different actors,” when asked about what it was like working across an actor playing two different roles simultaneously. Of course, there are physical differences between the two (Ronnie has glasses, and underbite, and is slightly taller) as well as personality differences, but due to the way Hardy carries himself within the characters, they are easy to differentiate even if one were looking at the backs of their heads.

Cultural significances —

In addition to being a technical feat, Legend holds an interesting place in the canon of British gangster films, particularly when compared to the 1980 film The Long Good Friday. The two films are unexpectedly connected by their subjects; although Legend was made over thirty years after The Long Good Friday, the older film plays off of real-life gangster stories (particularly surrounding the real Kray twins) that the newer film is entirely based on. There are many surface-level similarities between the two films, from torturing people as they hang upside down to the British gansters looking to work with their American counterparts but feeling shortchanged by an imbalance in power despite being on their home turf. There are even societally-relevant similarities; Colin (Paul Freeman) in The Long Good Friday is gay, but never discriminated against by his own people for it, and there are even arguments to be made that Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) himself is not heterosexual. There is a long history of non-straight gangsters in British cinema, from the campiness of Mr. Bridger (Noel Coward) in The Italian Job to Chas’s (James Fox) arc in Performance to the real-life leanings of Ronnie Kray. The Long Good Friday plays off this history and includes it in its account of its fictionalized gangsters, and Legend repeatedly references it, from portraying Ronnie’s relationship with Mad Teddy Smith (Taron Egerton) to having Ronnie verbally reaffirm it by doing everything from angrily kicking out rival gangsters who call him a “poof” to saying outright that he “prefer[s] boys.”

(Hardy as Ronnie Kray and Egerton as Mad Teddy Smith, *Legend*, 2015, Brian Helgeland)

The existence of gay gangsters in history and this genre of film actively goes against the stereotypes about non-heterosexual men being supposedly inherently weaker than straight men, and Hardy portrays this divergence from these harmful stereotypes in full force. While his performance of the two Krays is undoubtedly steeped in real historical accounts and legends surrounding the men, he also chooses to show Ronnie as the more outright violent and unhinged of the two men, going against what someone might, in prejudice, think of a man like him.

Put a bow on it —

Although Tom Hardy is not most well known for the aforementioned roles (his performances as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, Eames in Inception, and Alfie Solomons in Peaky Blinders are most commonly cited), his trajectory and range as an artist is shown most through his London-based filmography. Hardy has made a name for himself in Hollywood for his physical transformations, and when asked about it in an interview for Locke, he said, “I was, I suppose, a go-to guy for ‘he will put on weight,’ and ‘he will kick people’ and (...) ‘he will be punched’ (...) but I am not that guy at all, but that’s acting, isn’t it? (...) it’s transformation, so you can be anything or anybody, and so this particular exercise was in containment.” While these transformations are undoubtedly impressive, he is equally able to transform himself through action and voice alone, as proven with Sweeney Todd, Oliver Twist, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Locke, and Legend. Hardy’s character Eames in Inception is a forger; in the context of the manipulated dreams in the film, he has an ability to become other people. While this skill does not literally translate to the real world, the actor manages to do something very close by completely immersing himself in the characters he plays. An actor such as Hugh Grant (who is absolutely accomplished in his own right) has created a recognizable on-screen persona for himself that has, granted, changed over the course of his career, but also is a clear evolution. Although the characters have entirely different job descriptions, one can draw a direct line between Grant’s character in Notting Hill (William Thacker, bookshop owner) and his character in The Gentlemen (Fletcher, private investigator). It is much harder to draw these lines based on characteristics for Tom Hardy, but that fact alone is indicative of his trajectory — he has made a career by playing characters of such diverse background and mindset that his lack of on screen persona is a persona in itself. Hardy’s skill in melting into his roles has grown since his early days in the industry, but the inklings of it are present even in the films he was clearly less experienced in. Although he has now created a grounded presence for himself in an international market and through many franchise films, his growth as an artist is most visible when considering his London-based films, and considering that the aforementioned films are only from roughly a decade of work, Hardy’s abilities in physical forgery will undoubtedly grow and evolve with time. ⬥