How did the man who almost broke ‘Star Trek’ go on to break the Bat?
This is the Evolution of Tom Hardy.
The British actor has played Bane, Bronson, Mad Max, and Venom,
but Tom Hardy’s biggest transformation was himself,
and it started in The Early Years
Tom Hardy was born in London’s Hammersmith district in 1977,
to parents who were both deeply involved in the arts.
His father Edward was a screenwriter and novelist,
while his mother Anne was a well-known painter.
But despite his comfortable upbringing, Hardy had a troubled youth.
He was kicked out of boarding school for stealing, then spent time
in and out of jail for crimes ranging from disorderly conduct
to gun possession. Throughout it all, though,
Hardy was always interested in acting.
Growing up, he idolized his fellow Brit Gary Oldman, but
but Hardy’s original aspiration was to be a model.
In 1998, at the age of 21, he won a TV contest
that nabbed him a short-lived modelling contract.
He also tried his hand at hip hop, recording a mixtape
under the name Tommy No. 1 that didn’t resurface until 2018.
♪...little Hitler bitches, little twitches, sitting on their promises with their♪
♪shoulder-holsters, pearly teeth sharks posters of themselves kissing babies,♪
♪it's bullshit, you pull shit give me some truth...♪
Hardy couldn’t resist the call of stage and screen for long, though.
The same year he won the contest, Hardy enrolled at
Drama Centre London, where he studied alongside classmates
like Michael Fassbender. But before he could finish
his studies, both actors were called up to make their
onscreen debuts in Steven Spielberg’s
groundbreaking miniseries ‘Band of Brothers.’
he gritty war drama launched a dozen careers, including Hardy’s
and it led directly into his Fist Films.
After ‘Band of Brothers,’ he moved on to another military role
in Ridley Scott’s influential action film ‘Black Hawk Down.’
Hardy, would later earn a reputation for undergoing incredible physical transformations for his films,
endured a grueling weeklong training camp to convincingly
portray an Army Ranger in the true-life thriller.
After excelling in ensemble roles, Hardy was ready
to take a lead role in 2002’s ‘Star Trek: Nemesis.’
Headlining one of pop culture’s most prestigious
properties placed a huge amount of pressure on the young actor,
and the fact that he was playing a clone of Patrick Stewart’s
iconic Captain Picard didn’t help either.
‘Nemesis’ was a box office bomb, and even though
Hardy’s performance was praised, the film was so bad
that it nearly killed the Star Trek franchise.
"Our destiny's complete."
The actor took the film’s failure hard, spiralling into a deep depression that almost led to suicide.
International fame would have to wait,
because Hardy spent the next few years Finding Himself.
Hardy became addicted to crack cocaine and alcohol
at a young age, and despite his early success,
he continued to fight his demons into his mid-20s.
His battles came to a head in 2003, when after a night
of bingeing he collapsed in a pool of vomit and blood
on a London street. He checked into treatment
soon after, and he’s been clean and sober ever since.
As he worked on improving himself, Hardy also spent
these years rehabilitating his career. He began
taking roles on the stage and British television, like
the sci-fi reboot
'A For Andromeda'
the BBC biopic
'Stuart: A Life Backwards'
and a miniseries called
'The Virgin Queen'
where he met his wife Charlotte Riley.
Hardy’s profile continued to rise after portraying a gangster
called Handsome Bob in a Guy Ritchie movie called
‘RocknRolla,’ but it was his next role truly made him a star:
'Bronson.'
Hardy gained 42 pounds in five weeks to portray Britain’s
most notorious inmate, Charles Bronson.
While researching the role,
Hardy spent plenty of time with the brutal brawler in his tiny cell, forming an unlikely friendship.
The real Bronson was so impressed with the actor,
he actually shaved off his trademark moustache and
mailed it to the film set so they could build the most
authentic prop possible. ‘Bronson’ gave Hardy
a ton of buzz, and after the indie film exceeded expectations,
Hardy was primed for a blockbuster Resurgence.
Given his real-life run-ins with the law, Hardy has always
excelled at playing criminals, crooks and lowlifes,
which led director Christopher Nolan to cast him as the suave,
smooth-talking forger Eames in his mind-bending 2010
heist film ‘Inception.’ He was back to being part of an ensemble,
but Hardy’s unforgettable presence nearly outshined the rest of the cast.
"Thank you... So, now we're trapped in FIsher's mind
battling his own private army and if we get killed,
we'll be lost in limbo until our brains turn to scramble eggs."
In fact, it earned him a BAFTA Rising Star award...
almost ten years after his film debut.
The next year, Hardy got to live out a childhood dream,
acting opposite his hero Gary Oldman in
‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,' and after filming on the
dense, cerebral espionage film wrapped, Hardy went back
to the gym to bulk up for his starring role in the MMA drama
‘Warrior.’ After putting on 28 pounds of muscle,
Hardy was ready for his biggest role yet: Bane,
the hulking revolutionary who broke the Bat in
‘The Dark Knight Rises.’
"Oh, you think darkness is your ally?
You merely adopted the dark,
I was born in it. Molded by it."
Despite covering his face with a mask and speaking
in an extremely weird accent throughout the 2012 film,
In 2015 alone, he starred in five films, most notably
‘Mad Max: Fury Road,’ although compared to Furiosa,
the Road Warrior himself was far from the star of the film,
and ‘The Revenant,’ for which he received his first
Academy Award nomination. Last year, he strapped on
an oxygen mask as a heroic RAF pilot in Nolan’s ‘Dunkirk,’
and next we’ll see Hardy in a much different kind of costume
when he portrays the Lethal Protector Venom in the
Spider-Man villain’s first solo movie.
Tom Hardy has overcome his troubled past to become
one of Hollywood’s hardest- working actors, and his efforts
have been royally recognized. In 2018, Queen Elizabeth
appointed him as Commander of the Most Excellent Order
of the British Empire or CBE for his contributions to the art of drama
and while it’s not quite a knighthood yet,
given how fast his star has risen,
we might be calling him Sir Tom Hardy soon enough.