BRONSON Interview

Tough Guys

A fact-based character study of the infamous Michael Peterson (Tom Hardy)–known in the press as "most violent prisoner in Britain"–Bronson explores one man's metamorphosis from a small time hood into a skull-crushing modern folk legend. It's a breakout for film for Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, whose Pusher trilogy offered an unflinching journey into Denmark's drug underworld. (Next up: a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde adaptation starring Keanu Reeves.) Below, Refn discusses the influence of Hans Christian Andersen and filmmaker Kenneth Anger, and explains why violence in his films is "never funny."

Continue reading article

BRONSON Interview

Rough Character

Transformation is the name of the game if you're an actor, even though far too many of them let the makeup, wardrobe, and special effects teams do most of the heavy lifting. But every once in a while you discover someone who can literally transform, at a moment's notice, before your eyes. Such is the case with Tom Hardy. Last summer, the 32 year-old Brit, who's also made a name for himself in the UK for his radical physical transformations (see Stuart: A Life Backwards), was in New York promoting his then-upcoming film, RocknRolla, in which he played a gay getaway driver opposite Gerard Butler. Though Hardy delivered a deft and daring turn in the Guy Ritchie heist romp, all he really wanted to talk about was his passion project, Bronson, which came out Friday after a long, celebrated run on the festival circuit. So the next day I followed him to an ADR session, where he spent the next eight hours transitioning seamlessly from telling sentimental stories about his old dog Max and newborn son Louis to frothing, screaming, swearing, and becoming the caged animal that is Charlie Bronson, Britain's most violent criminal.

Continue reading article

ROCKNROLLA Out

Handsome Devil

The day he watched Madonna jab a needle into Gerard Butler’s bare ass, Tom Hardy realized the pop legend meant business. The 31-year-old British actor had been sitting on the side of the road in a Range Rover, preparing for a scene with Butler for Guy Ritchie’s new gangster tale, RocknRolla, when Madonna showed up to administer an injection of vitamin B12 to the 300 star, who was ill at the time. “It was her basically saying, ‘Gerard, I don’t want you fucking up my husband’s film,’?” Hardy says, chuckling. “There she is in the back of the car, slipping in from the roof, and appearing like the Terminator -- the fucking Madonna.”

Continue reading article

WUTHERING HEIGHTS Daily Mail

Heathcliff and Cathy reach such passionate Heights in ITV adaptation - is it for real?

When Heathcliff met Cathy Earnshaw, the woman who was to become his lover and eternal soulmate, for ITV1's new adaptation of Wuthering Heights, it wasn't quite the earth-moving coupling that Emily Bronte had in mind when she wrote one of literature's greatest love stories.

Forget all that bodice-ripping stuff about the darkly handsome man gazing into the eyes of the pale-skinned beauty trembling in his arms. When Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley got together, they bonded over endless cups of tea.

Continue reading article