An interview with Tom Hardy (and a little Jessica Chastain) in the August edition of French magazine Studio Ciné Live. Transcribed and translated by me! (Feel free to offer corrections. Thanks for the one I already got!)
Charming, passionate, the colossus of Warrior and Inception will take an even stronger hold with a dark creature of Batman in The Dark Knight Rises and as a moonshiner in Lawless. It was time for a word or two.
Before we start, you have to explain what this beard is about…
This? (Laughs) I’ve had this for five months. I had to trim it a bit, because I was told I was starting to look like a grizzly bear. It’s because of Mad Max 4.
The filming has been postponed an incalculable number of times. Are you excited about finally throwing yourself into this adventure?
Very! We start on July 20. I’ll admit that I’m also a bit nervous. Well, maybe not nervous but I’m very aware of the risk involved redoing such a mythical trilogy from the past. But I’m not going backwards. When I commit to something, I give everything. I’m a fan of Mad Max. I’m looking forward to this trip, to enjoy the company of George Miller and to create a new look for myself from head to toe as Max.
In Lawless, is it the legend of the immortal man which drew you to the character of Forrest Bondurant?
Not at all. It’s his femininity. Forrest is the matriarch of this family. When his oldest brother returns from the war, he is worn and starts to booze. And so Forrest doesn’t have any other option than to take care of him as well as his younger brother. Feed them, clean the house, make sure the business works, that’s his job. It’s a real mother, like a lioness who watches over her little ones. And when this femme fatale [played by Jessica Chastain] arrives in his life, his maternal side is brought into question. It upsets his balance. In addition, he’s attracted to her, which has never happen to him yet.
Like Lawless, Cicero, by David Yates, takes place during Prohibition. You’ll be an expert on the subject.
I didn’t know much before we started filming Lawless. As chance had it, I’ll be playing Al Capone in Cicero, next year. We’ll be going to Chicago and New York. So it’ll be quite different from the countryside of Lawless. But still, Al Capone! Isn’t it great to be able to portray a person like him? Dick Tracy, Bonnie and Clyde… There are so many cool people I’d like to play.
You often go through incredible transformations for your roles, like in Warrior. Has it become a need?
No. With Warrior, it was terrible! But I had to do it. I was surrounded by highly trained professionals who work with real soldiers. When I arrived and was that actor who knew absolutely nothing, they looked at me like they were saying ‘What are we supposed to do with this guy?’ (laughs) Oh look, my friend is famous! (Behind the adjoining bay window, Jessica Chastain is holding a women’s magazine on which she’s on the cover and is jumping for joy, mischievous like a little girl.) Here’s a girl who believes all the good things the press thinks of her! (laughs) She will give me a beating later. Luckily, she’s a close friend. She’s much more talented than I and she also beats me at Scrabble. Here, answer this question for me: Was it difficult for me to transform for Warrior?
Jessica Chastain: He worked incredibly hard. He trained at the end of every day during the filming of Lawless and he spent his time stuffing himself in order to gain weight.
TH: That was for The Dark Knight Rises, actually.
JC: For me, there’s Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, Sean Penn and Al Pacino. They’re the greatest. (She goes away.)
She very nice, your friend. So, you had started to work out for The Dark Knight Rises during the filming of Lawless?
Yes. I weighed 72 kilos at that time. At the end of the shoot, I weighed more than 86 kilos. The filming of Lawless and The Dark Knight Rises were back to back. It was brutal. I’ll never do that again: lifting weights, eat, lifting weights, eat… and most of all no cardio so I wouldn’t lose any weight! In fact, I did everything you can do to get a heart attack. It’s very bad, this kind of training, particularly for the liver. I definitely don’t recommend it. It was the last time I did that.
With your role in Inception, Christopher Nolan exposed you to the general public. Did you feel right away that the attention you were getting was increasing at that moment?
Of course! Christopher Nolan is big fish. But Mad Max 4 was already in preparation at the time of Inception. So there was already some movement going on. It’s when I did Bronson that the film industry started to look my way. Obviously, it all accelerated with Inception.
What have you learned from Christopher Nolan?
That when directors just paste on characters onto a spectacle, it doesn’t work. Christopher, he’s not just known for directing blockbusters, but for they way he analyses each of his characters. He knows how to externalise the mentality of his heroes. He’s scrupulous and knows how to challenge his actors. At his set, everyone is there to give the best of themselves.
In The Dark Knight Rises, you play Bane, Batman’s enemy. How did you adapt to permanently wear that mask which makes you kind of look like Hannibal Lecter?
It wasn’t as bad as it looks. (laughs) It only took me a few seconds to get there. I just had to find out where to drool and where the microphones were. With Bane, I wasn’t inspired by any particular performance. Instead, I worked with my voice. When I look at certain characters, I’ll take on a very precise tone of voice, speak like Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver, mix that with certain animal sounds and the voices of other personalities… I mix it all and I find my voice. That’s how I found Bane’s character.
Are you being careful of not getting stuck playing big, rough characters?
Actually, I don’t care at all! At the end of the day, I’ll play whatever character which people believe I’m incapable of playing. What is important, is that I love what I’m doing. I’m always passionate when I speak about my work, because, for me, it has a meaning. I love taking part of searching for stories about people I would otherwise never have seen. If people don’t like what I do, no problem! If all this - my career, ends tomorrow, it’s not bad. I had the opportunity to shine. Meanwhile, today is a beautiful day.
