The director who credits Tom Hardy with saving their life: “I really owe him for all that”
After becoming a big enough star to pick and choose not only his projects but the people he works with, Tom Hardy ended up offering an invaluable assist to a writer and director who found themselves crashing back down to earth after debuting with so much promise and equal amounts of hype just a few years previously.
The transformative actor has always been known for his collaborative spirit, whether he’s ringing up Noomi Rapace to get the inside scoop on a director he may or may not end up working with or drafting in long-time close friend and writing partner Kelly Marcel to become a screenwriter, then producer, and eventually director on the multi-billion Venom franchise.
Hardy might be famed for never using the same accent twice in a row and going to extreme lengths in order to get into character, but one of his less heralded defining traits is that many of his colleagues, peers, and contemporaries have outed him as a very nice man who’d do anything to help out his friends.
As fate would have it, he turned out to be the right person at the right time for Josh Trank, who’d seen his wunderkind status evaporate in an instant. Exploding onto the scene with his found footage superhero debut Chronicle, the first-time feature filmmaker was immediately anointed as being the next big thing.
He was only 27 years old when it released, and when it debuted at the top of the domestic box office, he became the youngest-ever director to helm a number one hit, smashing a record set by Steven Spielberg and Jaws that had stood unbroken for almost 40 years.
Taking the next step on the ladder, he signed on for Marvel’s Fantastic Four reboot, which is where the shit hit the fan. A troublesome presence both on and off set, studio 20th Century Fox ordered extensive reshoots and re-edits to try and hammer the blockbuster into salvageable shape, with Trank blasting the finished product on social media the day before it hit cinemas and bombed hard.
He was also dropped from a Star Wars movie and sent straight to director’s jail for his troubles. Seeking a comeback, he scripted a biographical drama following an ailing Al Capone in the latter years of his life, where he spends a great deal of time hallucinating and shitting his pants. It required a bravura performance, an often unintelligible accent, and someone willing to go the extra mile. Hardy was that guy, and Trank couldn’t have been happier.
“He hadn’t seen Fantastic Four, nor did he care about any of that shit. Tom didn’t care,” he told The Playlist. “And when Tom didn’t care, I didn’t care either, suddenly, and Tom really saved my life in that sense or at least my self-esteem. I really owe him for all that.”
Capone may not have been a great film – even if the sheer insanity of Hardy’s performance definitely made it worth a watch based on curiosity alone – but Trank nonetheless felt as though he’d found professional salvation at his lowest moment when he partnered up with his leading man.
