The actor Tom Hardy describes as his kindred spirit: “I do the sitting down and waiting”
Like many actors who’ve been in the business for decades, Tom Hardy has struck up strong relationships with a number of creatives with whom he shares a collaborative spirit.
He’s been in Christopher Nolan’s Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, and Dunkirk, with all three also starring fellow Nolan regular Cillian Murphy, who’d go on to share several scenes across multiple seasons with Hardy in small-screen favourite Peaky Blinders.
The Academy Award-nominated star first encountered Kelly Marcel when he hosted an acting workshop at a local pub in Battersea, bringing her on to do uncredited rewrites on his breakthrough movie Bronson. Over a decade later he’d bring her onto the Venom franchise as writer and executive producer, with Marcel set to make her directorial debut on third and final instalment The Last Dance.
Leonardo DiCaprio even personally thanked Hardy in his speech when collecting ‘Best Actor’ at the Oscars after they forged a firm friendship shooting The Revenant, emblematic of the connections that are formed along the way as any performer navigates the successes and pitfalls that come with an acting career.
It wasn’t any of them he called a kindred spirit, though, with that honour instead falling to someone he worked twice within very quick succession. Crime drama and James Gandolfini’s final film The Drop released in September 2014, followed seven months later by Daniel Espinosa’s mystery thriller Child 44.
Ironically, the latter would be the third time Hardy crossed paths with his hero Gary Oldman following Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Dark Knight Rises, but it wasn’t him, either. Instead, it was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo breakout Noomi Rapace who earned the “kindred spirits” tag.
They initially met on a project that didn’t end up happening, but became so comfortable in each other’s company they actively sought out something else to do together. In the end, they doubled down on both The Drop and Child 44, although Hardy admitted to The Independent he was happy for her to take the lead.
“No one auditions at the top level; it’s a conversation with a director or other actors as people discuss a project that’s in the ether,” he explained of Rapace and his desire to team up. “And Noomi is awesome at finding stuff. She’s ahead of the game; she knows everything about everyone, whereas I’m not so good at that. I do the sitting down and waiting.”
Instead of doing his own research, Hardly simply reaches out to his kindred spirit instead. “If I don’t who a director is, I’ll text Noomi and go, ‘Who’s this dude?'” relying on her to give an unfiltered opinion on whether or not it’s somebody he should even consider working with. Second opinions are always valuable, especially if they come from someone he trusts implicitly, like he does Rapace.
