Tom Hardy

BY: Matt Elisofon

The perfect combination of gritty and pretty, Tom Hardy, with his magnetic physicality, animal intensity and boundless talent, draws the most credible comparison to Marlon Brando we’ve seen in years. But unlike Brando, the pouty-lipped Hardy shows no signs of slowing down as he enters middle age.

Considering his past, Hardy’s edge, so rare among actors with his training and talent, actually makes sense. Despite a middle-class suburban upbringing, Hardy began drinking at 13 and spent much of his youth addicted to crack. But even then, “I wanted my dad to be proud of me,” he has said. “I fell into acting because there wasn’t anything else I could do, and in it I found a discipline that I wanted to keep coming back to, that I love and I learn about every day.” And so he did. Through expulsions, arrests and addiction, Hardy persisted and came to embody the tough-as-nails persona for which he has come to be known.

While his looks got him noticed first—at 21, Hardy won a modeling contract via a televised competition—it was his talent that made him stick. In 2001 he booked small but memorable roles in the hit HBO miniseries Band of Brothers and the military drama Black Hawk Down. His next break was as Shinzon, the scene-stealing heavy in Star Trek: Nemesis. Hardy worked steadily through the Aughts as a tough guy until he made another leap in 2008 as the titular Bronson, a hulking and barbaric criminal that reintroduced him to Hollywood execs (who were shocked to discover that he is only five-foot-nine) and a director by the name of Christopher Nolan, who gave him a supporting part in Inception (2010). It proved to be a more important role than his number on the call-sheet might have suggested.

In the wake of Heath Ledger’s tragic death, Nolan’s Batman franchise had a huge void to fill. But who could follow his Joker? Who would want to? Nolan had confidence in Hardy: “He has this incredible disjunct between the expressiveness of the voice and the stillness of the movement,” Nolan told Empire. “He just has a raw threat to him that’s extraordinary.” Nolan cast Hardy as Bane and he didn’t disappoint. As the massive and merciless villain, Hardy managed to hold his own against the memory of Ledger’s Joker—a seemingly impossible task.

Since then, Hardy has been on a tear, landing the title role in Mad Max: Fury Road reboot and the villain in Iñárritu’s The Revenant, for which he got his first Oscar nomination. But with his pick of the Hollywood litter in terms of projects, Hardy has chosen to do something once considered unthinkable for a star of his caliber—he’s turning to television.

In Taboo, an FX miniseries premiering January 10, Hardy plays James Delaney, a man who, bent on revenge after his father’s death, wages war against the East India Company in the 1800s. Aside from taking on the lead role, Hardy created and co-wrote the series with his father, Chips, the man he so hoped to impress as a youth. We’re going to go out on a limb and say that he has succeeded.