The one movie Tom Hardy hated making: “How could you do something so fun and be so miserable”
As one of the industry’s most famously immersive and committed actors, Tom Hardy has never been the type of actor who’d sign on for a movie for the express purpose of having fun.
Even the Venom trilogy, which aren’t good films by any stretch of the imagination and involved him doing daft things and working with extensive CGI in a preposterous comic book setting, came with plenty of pressure attached thanks to his role as a producer and co-writer despite their inherent silliness.
After all, this is the guy who claims he’s not a method actor despite doing plenty of things that seem suspiciously method-ish, whether it’s adopting a different accent for almost every single role, spending months bulking up or slimming down, and putting himself through psychological turmoil in the name of preparation.
That said, it’s not an earth-shattering revelation to discover that Hardy, who passed along a message forbidding anyone, including the author of the book, from looking directly at him when shooting The Bikeriders, takes himself and his craft incredibly seriously.
With that in mind, This Means War will forever remain an anomaly. He clearly didn’t go to The Dark Knight Rises co-star Christian Bale to seek his advice about working with McG, a director who’s been operating for a quarter of a century and still hasn’t found it in himself to make even a half-decent film.
An inane romantic spy caper that saw Hardy and Chris Pine playing rival spooks battling for Reese Witherspoon’s affections, it inexplicably recouped its budget three times over at the box office despite being terrible. In fact, it became – and still is – the single worst-reviewed entry in the actor’s filmography.
After making Bronson, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and Warrior in quick succession, Hardy was entitled to a bout of frivolity that offered him a rare opportunity to take things easy. His reasoning for signing on for This Means War was as simple as it was self-explanatory: “I love to do things I hadn’t done before.”
Presumably, what he meant was a light and frothy romantic caper, not the worst thing he’d ever been in and the most miserable experience of his career. “I didn’t understand how you could do something which is so much fun and be so miserable doing it,” he lamented. “I probably won’t do a romantic comedy again, do you know what I mean?”
Almost a decade and a half later, has Hardy backtracked on his vow and made another rom-com after This Means War left him downtrodden and ready to disavow an entire genre forever? Has he fuck. Clearly, a breezy concept doesn’t make for a breezy shoot, and it must have been soul-crushing for Hardy to pretend his character was having fun when he was dying on the inside.
