Tom Hardy (5 page)

Once the film had wrapped, Tom had a promise to keep before he flew home to the UK. He had told his agent, Lindy King, that if she got him into Hollywood, he would honour her by having her name tattooed on his arm. If you look closely, on the inside of Tom’s left arm, just above the elbow joint, you can see Lindy’s name just below a tattoo of a crown.

Amongst the
Star Trek
fraternity, there exists a theory that even-numbered
Star Trek
films are always good. Sadly, this theory didn’t hold water when it came to their opinions of
Star Trek: Nemesis
which, as the 10th movie in the series, should by rights have been a cracker. Amongst Trekkies, there were rumblings of discontent when it came to light that director Stuart Baird was not intimately acquainted with existing material and apparently hadn’t attempted to do any research in the same way that other new
Trek
directors had in the past. On the whole, fans seemed to find the film bland and unimaginative.

For critics, their disapproval largely arose from the fact that the
Next Generation
part of the franchise was now past its sell-by date, and
Star Trek: Nemesis
seemed to have made no effort to breathe new life into it. As Anthony Quinn quipped in the
Independent
: ‘It’s another
Star Trek
movie, the 10th in a series that’s still boldly going where most franchises would have called it a day.’

In fact, the film did signal the end of the
Next Generation
series and was judged by Patrick Stewart to be ‘a suitable farewell. A number of us feel we don’t want to outstay our welcome.’ It appeared they may have already done just that.

Although the film did not fare well from the sharp tongues of the critics, Tom was widely praised for his performance. He
even won himself a nomination for a Saturn Award from the Academy of Science Fiction and Fantasy in the Best Supporting Actor category (the award was ultimately won by Sean Astin for his part in the third instalment of the
Lord of the Rings
trilogy,
The Return of the King
). The British media jumped on the role of Shinzon as being Tom’s big break and proclaimed him to be the next big thing in British acting.
Variety
wrote that he showed ‘charisma in a stock villain role that should (given the circumstances) have been written with more dimensionality.’

One American critic, Michael Kleinschrodt described him as the film’s ‘best surprise,’ going on to say: ‘The young man has no trouble holding his own in scene after scene opposite Stewart, a fair indication that he might just have a stellar career ahead of him.’ It was a reasonable assumption to make, given the awesome show of talent from the young actor so far. And Tom did have a ‘stellar career’ ahead of him – but it would take almost a decade for him to get everything in the right place and show the world what he was capable of.

Star Trek
was not the only project Tom had been working on at this time, but it was without doubt the most high profile and it brought with it the burden of expectation. Unfortunately, the next few releases with his name attached to them were either unremarkable or Tom’s role in them was something of a ‘blink and you miss him’ experience. None of the films provided that vital stepping stone he needed to capitalise on his new-found recognition.

The Reckoning
, released in 2003, is a medieval murder mystery with an impressive cast headed up by Willem Dafoe and Paul Bettany. The plot concerns a priest (Bettany) who
flees his village after being caught having sex with a married woman. Whilst on the run, he encounters a travelling theatre troupe that traverses the country performing morality plays. They reluctantly allow him to join and subsequently find themselves at the centre of a genuine murder mystery. Tom’s role in the film is that of a member of the travelling players. It’s not a lead role and he’s very much in the background of the action. The one thing that may just spark a bit of interest among Hardy devotees is that his character is more often than not required to take on the parts of female characters in the morality plays, so he is often dressed in women’s clothing and sporting make-up on camera. Excerpts for a ‘before they were famous’ set of clips in the future, perhaps.

In the promotional puff,
Dot the I
was billed as a love story with a psychological twist. While at first it seems to be the intriguing tale of a love triangle, it eventually descends into a rather silly plot in which the denouement takes on more importance than the characters involved. Writing in
Variety
, David Rooney was pretty categorical in his dismissal of the film, commenting: ‘Behind its slick veneer and the glibness of its preposterous premise and dark twists, there’s a yawning absence of charm or substance in this London-set love triangle, as well as a lack of chemistry between its three leads.’ The three lead characters were played by Gael Garcia Bernal, James D’Arcy and Natalia Verbeke, while Tom’s character (also called Tom) was a more minor role and was, along with Charlie Cox, Kit’s (Bernal) friend. Between the two of them, they provided some light-hearted relief from the mayhem of the rest of the story.

Finally,
LD50
was filmed between October 2002 and early
2003 (also the year of its release). In it, Tom plays a character called Matt, a member of a group of animal rights activists. Having been involved in animal liberation raids on research laboratories in the past, this time the group reunite to rescue a friend who was left behind at a facility when a previous raid was interrupted. The group receives a message indicating that their friend is being subjected to a traumatic ordeal. Their mercy mission takes a sinister turn and they get more than they bargained for as they attempt to track down their missing friend. Classified as a ‘psychological horror’, the film was probably most notable for the fact it co-starred Melanie Brown, aka Scary Spice. It was first shown in the USA at the Detroit International Horror Film Festival but in most territories it went straight to DVD and made little impact.

Underneath it all, Tom was still a troubled soul. Like many other young actors, he was plagued by insecurity, as he recalled in a 2009 interview with
Daily Variety
: ‘I came back from
Star Trek
, and I didn’t have any work, and I panicked.’ To make matters worse, he was still a slave to his drink and drug addictions. While acting was occupying his ‘busy head’ to a degree, the only way he could really calm the noise in his mind was by seeking escape into the fug of alcohol and drug binges.

With the benefit of hindsight, he more recently reflected on this period of his life when he met up for a second time with
Lodown
magazine and remembered an interview he had done with them during the press junkets for
Star Trek
. Talking to them in 2011, he looked back on what his state of mind had been in 2002: ‘I wasn’t even on the f*****g planet. Let’s
make no bones about it, I was on rocket fuel. Man I was f****d. And I thought that film was going to make me a superstar. How wrong was I?’

Tom is famous for his candidness in interviews and one story in particular (that has been repeated time and again) demonstrates the extent to which he seemed hellbent on derailing a potentially remarkable career. Speaking on
The Jonathan Ross Show
in 2010, he admitted that there had been many occasions on which he’d blacked out whilst bingeing on either drugs or alcohol. He recounted a time when he had been in LA for a meeting with director John Woo about a possible film role. Thanks to who knows what kind of misdemeanours, he missed the meeting, instead waking up in a bed in an unknown location in the city, next to a naked man with a gun – and a cat. It might sound like a scene from
The
Hangover
but this was Tom’s reality at the time. As he told Ross: ‘The safety of the gun was off, so I must have fallen asleep looking down the barrel of a gun.’

As Tom is now acutely aware, talent alone is not enough to build an acting career – it takes hard work and commitment, and his exorbitant behaviour was proving a massive impediment to his progression. ‘There comes a point when the world will stop rewarding potential and talent, natural gifts. There’s only so long that people will put up with the potential of working with someone who could be brilliant,’ Tom told
Men’s Health
magazine. Fortunately for his health and his career, his exhausted body forced his hand in cleaning up his act.

Excessive indulgence in potentially lethal substances is a habit that can only be endured for so long before the body – and often the mind – gives up. Inevitably things build towards
a critical point and, in some cases, an addict will take heed of the warning signs and choose that time to change their behaviour. For actor and comedian Robin Williams, for example, the wake-up call came in the form of the
drug-related
death of his friend John Belushi, in whose company he had been the night Belushi died. The tragedy brought into focus the danger of his own addiction to cocaine. He checked into rehab and, since becoming clean, has had the most remarkable film career. In other cases, sadly, these warning signs are dismissed and can lead to tragic and untimely deaths. In press interviews with Tom, the point at which he woke up to himself is repeatedly referred to – and why not? It makes great copy for journalists and it gives Tom a unique selling point: the bad boy from the right side of the tracks who pulled himself back from self-destruction.

Towards the end of 2002, during the nocturnal hours when London’s West End truly comes alive, Tom was often to be spotted out and about on the busy streets, chasing highs. The superstardom he had expected had not been forthcoming and he didn’t have work on tap to occupy his restless mind. His insecurities piled up and he quietened his inner turmoil by participating in a lifestyle that blurred the hard edges of reality. One night, on Soho’s Old Compton Street, his indulgence went too far and he collapsed, crack pipe in hand, covered in blood and vomit. His burnout was so severe that he was taken straight to hospital. Upon his release, he returned to his parents’ house in East Sheen and they helped him enrol on a recovery programme. ‘That was a lesson to me,’ he told the
Mail & Guardian
in 2011. ‘I was fed to the Kraken and popped out the other side. In death I was reborn…’

Sadly, one casualty of his breakdown was his marriage to Sarah. For obvious reasons, Tom doesn’t go into great detail about this aspect of his recovery but part of his rehabilitation was to make amends to his parents and his ex-wife for his past behaviour. His recovery also signalled that he had finally grown up and taken responsibility for himself and his actions. ‘It was the end of a childhood which had gone on too long, that didn’t grow into adulthood and wasn’t going to work alongside my profession,’ he admitted.

What his bad behaviour did do, though, was to give him experience of the terrifying side of human nature. His predilection for dangerous substances and situations pushed him mentally – and often physically – into all kinds of desperate places; corners of the world and of the mind where most would rather not go. And he has exploited his knowledge of these grim recesses of the soul for some of his most spectacular performances.

Although he had ditched the drink and drugs, he was all too aware that there was still chaos inside his head that needed some kind of outlet. ‘I can’t stand being in my head, that’s why I have to get out of it. That’s where the drugs and drink came in. I don’t do any of that any more, though. That’s why I have to act,’ he explained to
The Times
in 2007. To the delight of critics and fans, Tom had decided to channel his adrenal fizz into his work – a wise choice, considering the breathtaking results that have followed.

It was fitting, then, that the first role he undertook as the clean and sober Tom was that of a desperate drug addict. Guided by his agent Lindy King, the direction of Tom’s rebooted career was to have its foundations on the stage rather
than the screen.
In Arabia We’d All Be Kings
, by Stephen Adly Guirgis, is set in New York in 1996, at the time when mayor Rudy Giuliani was redeveloping Times Square. The action of the play takes place around a bar in Hell’s Kitchen, where the misfits who constitute the characters of the play gather. The production was directed by Robert Delamere and staged in April and May of 2003 at the Hampstead Theatre in London, which touted the play as ‘an uplifting tragi-comedy capturing the vibrancy of a unique precinct under threat’.

Tom’s character was the aptly-named Skank, a junkie who turns to selling his body for money to fund his increasing drug dependency. It might seem ironic that this was the role that restarted Tom’s acting career, but for him it was a gift: ‘After I came out of hospital, my first job was playing a crackhead alcoholic rent boy in a play, which was tremendously cathartic because I was re-enacting a load of stuff I had just lived,’ he said in an interview with the
Irish Times
.

It should also be remembered that this was Tom’s professional stage debut. Since he left drama school to be in
Band of Brothers
, all his jobs had involved acting for film. For someone who has admitted – and demonstrated – that he has a debilitating fear of failure, to go from rehab straight to a stage performance must have been daunting, to say the least. On the stage, there are no second takes, no re-shoots and the actors have to bring everything to their performance, night after night. Speaking to the
Evening Standard
a few months after the play had ended its run, Tom described how he felt when acting on stage. ‘Terrified – every time. You’re bringing a character to life in a gladiatorial ring where people want to see you fail.’

When the theatre critics came to assess the play, failure was not a word they juxtaposed with the name Tom Hardy. Quite the opposite, in fact. Whatever their comments on the production itself, they were united in their praise of Tom’s performance. Nicholas De Jongh of the
Evening Standard
described it as ‘a remarkable stage debut’ and Paul Taylor of the
Independent
described Skank as ‘brilliantly played by Tom Hardy’.