Edward Thomas “Tom” Hardy is an English actor, producer and screenwriter. BAFTA winner and Oscar nominee. He became famous thanks to the film “Stuart: A Past Life”, where he played the role of drug addict and homeless Stuart Shorter, which brought him a BAFTA nomination. Also known for his main and supporting roles in films such as “Bronson”, “Rock and Roll”, “Inception”, “Warrior”, “Legend”, “Common Fund”, “The Drunkest District in the World”, ” The Dark Knight Rises, Locke, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant, Dunkirk, and Venom. Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Venom
Hardy deserves a high-profile role in a Marvel movie — and he is one of the very few actors who would be equally credible as superhero or supervillain. But this isn’t the one. Here he plays tough investigative reporter Eddie Brock, who takes down corporate bad guys in his weekly online show. But then he “fuses”, horribly, with a symbiote organism imported from outer space by precisely the kind of evil business behemoth that he exposes on his programme and becomes the monstrous Venom. The element of broad comedy really isn’t Hardy’s thing.
Warrior
This was a film widely considered in its day to have brought the smackdown and delivered the action wowsers. Hardy plays Tommy, an Iraq war veteran returning home to Philadelphia to settle the score with his boozy, bullying dad, Paddy, played by Nick Nolte. The father contritely agrees to coach Tommy in his career as an MMA fighter, but Tommy’s opponent turns out to be his equally tightly wound brother Brendan, played by Joel Edgerton. It’s by-the-numbers stuff, but Hardy is simmeringly charismatic.
Capone
A very strange but arresting performance from Hardy as the prematurely ageing Al Capone, under house arrest in Florida in the last year of his life, suffering from dementia and syphilis, starting to hallucinate and displaying an unfortunate habit of soiling himself in moments of stress. Hardy growls and rasps his insults in Italian and English.
